The importance of solid home form
One of the most contributory factors behind our success last season was how incredible our home form was.
Being a newly-promoted team and enjoying a tsunami of momentum off the back of the playoff campaign, the Stadium of Light was a fortress. Tickets for home games were like gold dust, and you could feel the weight of expectation for every home game.
For so long over recent seasons, it was said that teams should come to play us and be filled with fear at the prospect of playing us at our place. Unfortunately,
that wasn’t the case, and opposition would often treat it like their cup final and up their game two hundred per cent in order to get a result.
We’d often struggle to break down low blocks and would feel the pressure to get a result at home, but this is no longer the case, and we clearly relish playing at home.
The players clearly feed off the energy from the stands, and we play with no fear. We’re aggressive and we don’t give teams a minute to catch their breath. There’s an almost siege mentality when we play at home — to appreciate this, up until 11 February, we were one of only two teams in the whole of the Football League and Premier League not to lose a home game.
The first team to come and beat us was Liverpool, who were ultimately only four points better off than us at the end of the season. Each of the traditional ‘Big Six’ came to the Stadium of Light and were lucky to walk away with any result, with the best examples being the draws with Arsenal and Manchester City.
At the time of playing Arsenal, they hadn’t lost or conceded in any of their previous ten games in all competitions. Although it took a late equaliser from Brian Brobbey, they were lucky to walk away with a result.
During the draw with Man City, we were exceptional once again and gave as good as we got and had three or four golden chances to win it, which on another day would’ve seen us sneak three points.
A chance for redemption?
The football gods must have a script in store for us on Sunday. It’s somewhat ironic that Fulham were the only team to do the double over us last season, and we have them as our first home game.
Based on the opening weekend’s performances and seeing how easily Chelsea ripped open the Fulham defence, I’d have us to win this.
Add in the fact that Fulham played Monday night and Thursday night in the League Cup before travelling up, and the players will no doubt have it in the back of their minds what Fulham did to us last season. They’ve also lost their manager and the spine of their team in Raul Jimenez and Harry Wilson.
However, there is an argument that they are somewhat of an unknown quantity.
They have an inexperienced manager in Alvaro Arbeloa as well as a couple of signings made from Real Madrid, and no one knows how they’re going to respond to a turbulent summer. Will the media noise tipping them for relegation spur them on for a successful season?
Recent Stadium of Light memories
The Stadium of Light has largely been a place of positivity since Régis Le Bris took over two seasons ago. Even in just a short space of time, memories have been created that will be taken to the grave — memories that a generation of supporters have waited a lifetime for.
From arguably the greatest night the stadium will ever see when Dan Ballard folded himself like a deckchair to head us to Wembley and break the twenty-year Coventry hoodoo to Nick Woltemade forgetting where and who he was and nutting one in off his own crossbar to take three points off our nearest and dearest after an eight-year wait.
Then, that day in the baking May sunshine when a Chelsea team full of superstars were played off the park, and one of the League One originals in Trai Hume fired one home to help us secure European football for the first time in over fifty years.
What made these even more special was the excellent work done by This Is Wearside; the ‘Til the End tifos and many flag displays that have all contributed to some of the best atmospheres we have seen. Hopefully, This Is Wearside and the club have many more great ideas ahead of the new season.
Special nights in the Europa League
Of course, we also have the tantalising thought of European nights at the Stadium of Light.
Night games at the stadium are always special, especially since the introduction of pre-match night shows and accompanying foghorn. Many may find this ‘tinpot’, but I feel it’s been a cracking addition to the pre-match build-up, especially alongside the pre-match message from our captain Granit Xhaka.
I’m sure the club has something extra special in store for these European nights, and this will make for a fierce wall of noise that may even put some of the European Ultras to shame.
To me, it’s no coincidence that the vast majority of good memories have been created at the place that so many of us hold close to our hearts. We have an incredible asset at our disposal, and the ‘twelfth man’ can help us get over the line in so many games this season that are sure to be tightly fought contests.
The Stadium of Light has been a massive part of our resurgence under Le Bris, and here’s hoping that Sunday is the start of another successful season at home.
