By Chris Toronyi
I hate Mondays. I hate Mondays after a loss. I hate Mondays after a loss to them.
What else needs to be said? We lost, we lost focus, and we fell behind when we were in charge.
It's never difficult to keep your head in the game for 90 minutes, but it's more about when you lose focus, when the head is turned. I'm not saying it's okay to tune out when that ball is out of play or in the opposing half, but when the play is on you, you have got to show-up. Be present. It seems all too often we're not present, we're mentally drifting in and out of key plays. Are these unfamiliar situations? I don't think so.
The same situations keep creeping up time after time and this new norm is becoming a bit of a blueprint to our season thus far. And it seems this norm is evolving into different interpretations with the same sort of result. It's becoming a bit "crazy" at the back – you know that old adage: keep doing the same thing over and over, hoping that the outcome will be different.
Trust me, as a parent I know that is not the case. It won't be different. Your child will still do the same wrong thing over and over if you don't teach them the right way and mentally prepare them for the situation. Yes, that's how I look at things now -- how would a kid act, and how would you shape the kid to make them succeed. Okay, probably not the best analogy.
In all honesty, I'm mentally exhausted after yesterday. I had hopes, but we didn't deliver on the big stage. I hate that we didn't.
I hate Mondays. I hate Mondays after a loss.
Thanks for reading and thanks for listening. This week on the Arsenal America Podcast we welcome back Andrew Mangan of Arseblog and ESPNFC and Jeremy Wilson of the Daily Telegraph. We'll recap Spurs and look ahead to Bayern next week.
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Chris Toronyi is a longtime Arsenal supporter and the host of The Arsenal America podcast, available every week at ArsenalAmerica.com and on iTunes at "Arsenal America Podcast." You can read more of Chris' thoughts on Twitter.
The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of Arsenal Football Club or Arsenal Media Group.
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
