Why such a difference? We have a reasonable home record and a poor away one, but its the same for most teams every season. I've never really understood why there is such a huge difference between teams home and away records. Surely its just a psychological thing, after all pitches are the same size, you still use a ball, the goals are the same size. Why set up differently away from home if you are successful at home? Does the crowd really have that much effect?
It's something I have never been able to get my head around, and this became even more bewildering when under Mike Walker, we were brilliant on the road for a most of season (forgetting the last month or so). I could never understand why we could win week after week both home and away, after watching us being poor at away games for so many years before, and have been since (in the top flight).
Home advantage is a well documented phenomenon in many sports, including football. The home team is likely to have a partisan crowd behind them, know the venue they are playing at better, had better preparation (no long journey, staying in a hotel overnight) and I could go on. In terms of international and European fixtures I guess being better adapted to your home climate too. Most of it is psychological, but it is very real.
Id agree with lots of this in the past, but Im not sure travel should/does play a big part now. The crowd has some effect, but surely not that big a one. I still dont see why it should effect how you set up for a match. In some cases playing at home should be a disadvantage when the crowd is on the teams back = increased pressure. It is very much a psychological thing, but surely one teams should be able to get over.
As you speculated, I would say the crowd is on a team's back it does make them play worse more often then not. Some of the differences I mention like climate, travel, familiarity with ground (to be honest most of those probably aren't relevant in our case) are not psychological but the crowd effect is. But I'm sure many have tried to overcome it and nobody has really managed yet; I'm not a psychologist and have never played professional football but I guess it is probably evolutionarily hardwired into our bodies to be nervous when we are in unfamiliar territory and more relaxed when we are not.
It is true that people are generally more fearful of the unknown. But equally once you start playing adrenalin should overcome this you would of thought. Strange really, you would of thought with the right training (mental) a team could overcome this and therefore be very successful.
I think it's more to do with the fact that teams are set up differently in the first place isn't it? In essence, home teams tend to do better because away teams don't attack them so much. In other words, the expectation is already set that the home team has an advantage and therefore the teams play to that expectation and therefore the results follow suit and the whole cycle is perpetuated. Not convinced at the top level that there are any actual differences these days - players will have played on all the grounds, travel is luxurious, facilities are all outstanding.
