Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhuttl has blamed his club’s poor home form this season on the pressure placed on them at St. Mary’s.
The Saints have lost eight of their 13 home games in the Premier League, which is the most of any side in the top-flight, including the teams in the bottom three.
Hasenhuttl says that there is too much pressure on his players to perform at home, which weighs them down.
Speaking to the Daily Echo, Hasenhuttl said:
Sometimes it is a little difficult to play at home.
Against Burnley, everyone expects that we are 3-0 up after ten minutes. It is a little hard to show this, this is a pressure guys aren’t used to carrying.
In away games, no-one expects anything from us. Maybe that’s the reason we perform better in away games.
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The atmosphere at the stadium can sometimes set the tone for a match, which has been an issue for Southampton this season.
If a player plays a back pass early on and sections of the crowd jeer and urge the team not to do that again, the rhythm of the game can be disrupted.
It is impossible to know how playing at home affects each player individually, but if the crowd keeps urging them not to stick to the game plan, it could cause them to go off-script and ruin the flow.
This means that the game can often become edgy and tense, leading to Southampton struggling to maintain dominance of a match, which is what happened against Burnley.
However, if the crowd were behind their team and supporting how they played throughout, rather than jeering and booing, the players could take confidence from it and play to their strengths.
As Hasenhuttl says, the St. Mary’s crowd can place pressure on the players and expect them to win and when that is not the case, it could be tough for the players to play in such an atmosphere.
