Over the last few years, Millwall have had a very good record at home and a not so good record on the road. This year it seems to be the other way round. With seven league defeats at home this season, the Den is no longer a place to fear for opposing teams. The hostility of our atmosphere may still be there from time to time, but it's not a difficult place to go this season in terms of picking up points.
With no home league wins so far in 2012, this backs up my arguement. There are many reasons for our poor home form, which I'm going to discuss. First of all, tactics. We seem to give teams too much respect when playing at home. Some games we've played five in midfield, or an extra defender in midfield. Occasionally our play is too predictable, when Darius Henderson is playing especially. We rely on our central defenders to lump balls forward to Henderson, allowing him to bring other players into play.
We needed width in the team. James Henry has offered us that since he's been back in the side. We already look a much better proposition with him in the team, however results at home are still bad. You could blame the pitch, which looks truly awful at the moment. I have no idea whats causing it, but it needs to be sorted. Kenny Jackett has used it as an excuse the odd time, well if it's a problem then just sort it. This could be a reason for our downfall at home. In our games away at Brighton and Peterborough, their pitch has been immaculate which allowed us to play on the ground. In those games we came away with a 2-2 draw and a 3-0 win. Both games were arguably our best performances of the season.
Playing infront of our home crowd could be another factor. Some will be thinking that surely this works in our advantage. In some cases yes, but when the team is playing poorly and fans are getting on their back, it can effect players confidence. I'm probably guilty of singling out particular players for abuse whilst at a game, but maybe thats not the right thing to do. We need to be supporting the team from the off, making the opposition feel intimidated and not our own players.
This season, playing away from home seems to be a different story for once. We usually struggle on our travels. We've won our last two away games convincingly, winning four in the league in total this season. I know that isn't brilliant but trust me, this is Millwall we're talking about and that's a great away record going by our history. We probably should have more away wins to our name based on performances. In every away league win this season we have scored three goals. Pretty impressive, but I just wish we could do it at home every now and again.
We seem to adopt a different style of play away from home. We play football on the ground, spreading the ball about the pitch, retaining possession well. The fact that away from home there is less pressure on the players may also result in better performances. Obviously there are less Millwall fans in attendance away from home than at home, so there is less chance of a particular player being singled out for a stupid mistake.
Maybe I've got it all wrong. It's difficult to put your finger on it really. All of these arguements are valid, but may not be accurate. Looking at our fixtures, we play most of the teams around us away and all of our home games are against teams in the top half. Something tells me that we could see plenty more home defeats and away victorys for the rest of the season.
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