Use Pain to Fuel the Next Race – Suburban Gooners

Immediately after Saturday’s result, as well as yesterday, I decided to stay away from anything football related. I was with my family for the weekend, it was a bit of a family celebration, I didn’t want to ruin it by thinking too much about the last minute winner, because I knew that would distract me from this beautiful evening and the next day where there were so many things to be grateful for besides football. We conceded a goal at the last second. It’s rubbish.

I went for a walk before the referee even blew the whistle. It worked to be fair. I took a deep breath, the whole family agreed to talk about anything and everything, I avoided the media and social media for about 36 hours.

And I realized that this is the challenge of football and this is the world we live in these days; the need for everything to be “hot takes” and “jokes”. The weaponization of other people’s misery is something that has become a mainstay of football these days and so by completely cutting off all oxygen for me personally, I was able to go on and have a great weekend with my parents, brother, niece and nephew. I wholeheartedly recommend it.

I suspect what also helped minimize my overall sense of frustration was the context in which it all took place. As I’m sure you know if you’ve been reading all the social media over the last few days after the defeat to Villa, Arsenal have traveled to some of the toughest pitches in the country now and yet we’re still two points ahead. We also did it in the context of an injury crisis that borders on farce. When we get to the Christmas period, I’ll look again at how many days we missed players due to injuries as a collective; I guess we’re leading the championship for that, but we still find ourselves leading the championship in points as well.

I think the most important thing most of us hope to see from this outcome is a positive reaction from the team. They must use this feeling as fuel to fuel the fire in their belly. The hurt they suffered – visibly manifested after Buendia’s goal – must be kept within them and used to ensure they do their best to never let that experience happen again. It means going out and winning football games again. That means trying to return to another 18-year unbeaten streak. That means getting back on the wagon and while I hope to see a big turnaround on Wednesday night against Club Brugge, those on the pitch still need to use this defeat as a tonic to push them to win this football match. You go out there and beat Brugge on Wednesday to essentially guarantee the Champions League top eight spot, and then you’re already back on the wagon and ready to head back home to Wolves for Saturday night’s kick-off.

I’m not really sure I want to say much more today. I think I want to let the dust settle after Saturday’s defeat and use tomorrow to focus on Bruges rather than thinking about what happened. If you fancy a little post-match review, you can check out Amanda and James’ post-match pod here. Other than that, I’ll put a pin in my thoughts today and be back tomorrow to watch Bruges.

See you soon then.