Can the Anfield crowd suss out a result in advance?

I think it was in the 60s the use of the Think Tank as a means of foretelling events or trends was instigated. Was it in Boston? The Hudson Institute and Gulbenkian comes to mind. No matter, the idea was to get together a number of experts in a particular field of study and have them deliberate in an intense discussion session session behind closed doors and try and agree what would be the most likely future developments in their field of study.

I remember that there were remarkable results reported when they had the group try to answer questions about the past. For instance they might have been asked to guess at the population of Egypt in the year 1066. Despite having only their brains to call on , no reference materials being within reach, they scored remarkably well, way beyond what would have been expected via probability theory! So they were getting within 90-95% every time so they would then move on to obscure questions about the present again with results beyond belief. So, the theory went, why could they not attempt to predict future events and developments?

Anyway, enough of the background, my point is that at Anfield on any matchday is gathered the most educated group in the world in terms both of football in general and Liverpool Football Club in particular. Is it feasible that such an immense aggregation of brainpower can take into account the various factors at play and collectively guess the outcome? Further does this explain the weird changes in atmosphere and home crowd mood from game to game?

Think about it, the great Champion’s League victories have been electric from before the kick-off. In Istanbul there was a feeling at half-time that all was not lost yet the crowd should have been despondent. Other games I can remember the atmosphere was dead from kick-off to final whistle and we got a performance to match it. The recent Derby match was a case in point. We did not get the second goal but there was none of the electric tension experienced at the Villa home game when you could feel the crowds expectancy that Villa would equalise and possibly win. So what comes first? Does the celebrated 12th man set the tone for the 11 players, when they come out of the tunnel, having already sussed out the result?