Adam
Active Member
- Feb 23, 2004
- 2,556
- 82
Sitting at the game yesterday, i couldnt help but notice that, epecially in the first half, the fans were somewhat in a state of continual frenzy, something that ive not seen in 15 years of being a season ticket holder.
The causes of this are fairly obvious; with our fantastic start, there was clearly a degree of expectation/hope that we'd get something out of the game, something that i personally believe was fuelled largely by the media who were really hyping us up in the build-up to the game. With the ground already rocking at kick-off, the atmosphere obviously reached fever pitch when Defoe scored, and id challenge anyone not to have been caught up in the heat of the moment and gone, quite frankly, ballistic-it was amazing.
However, after that moment, expectation seemed to get the better of us supporters and i found that the atmosphere became extremely hostile, especially towards the referee who was admittedly having a shocker. The problem was though that this seemed to transfer itself to the players, who looked to get very panicky in possession, most notably Palacios and Huddlestone, the two guys that we most needed to be relaxed on the ball, and to a lesser extent Bassong and King. For me, this was the reason why we played so many diagonal balls to Crouch-the players were panicking on the ball and sought an easy out-ball at all times.
Im obviously not blaming us fans for the defeat, im just more interested to see if anyone felt the same way, as the atmosphere yesterday was something that i cant recall ever seeing before in terms of the intensity and the way that the fans were reacting so furiously to any decision or foul, whether it had been serious, niggly or just petty.
The causes of this are fairly obvious; with our fantastic start, there was clearly a degree of expectation/hope that we'd get something out of the game, something that i personally believe was fuelled largely by the media who were really hyping us up in the build-up to the game. With the ground already rocking at kick-off, the atmosphere obviously reached fever pitch when Defoe scored, and id challenge anyone not to have been caught up in the heat of the moment and gone, quite frankly, ballistic-it was amazing.
However, after that moment, expectation seemed to get the better of us supporters and i found that the atmosphere became extremely hostile, especially towards the referee who was admittedly having a shocker. The problem was though that this seemed to transfer itself to the players, who looked to get very panicky in possession, most notably Palacios and Huddlestone, the two guys that we most needed to be relaxed on the ball, and to a lesser extent Bassong and King. For me, this was the reason why we played so many diagonal balls to Crouch-the players were panicking on the ball and sought an easy out-ball at all times.
Im obviously not blaming us fans for the defeat, im just more interested to see if anyone felt the same way, as the atmosphere yesterday was something that i cant recall ever seeing before in terms of the intensity and the way that the fans were reacting so furiously to any decision or foul, whether it had been serious, niggly or just petty.
