In some sort of twisted dark humour attempt at comedy my timeline on Twitter reminded me just now that on this day in 2007 we went to Anfield and put six goals past Liverpool to make it through to the League Cup Semi Final. Julio Baptista, Alex Song and Jeremie Aliadiere all got on the scoresheet that day and I couldn’t help but give a wry smile to the irony of the fact we’ve just been dumped out of the FA Cup against that same opponent, only this time on our turf, after failing to convert any of the numerous chances we were given on Sunday. Heck, we probably could have had six ourselves if there wasn’t so many problems in front of goal right now.

And as we know, there are so many problems. Players are taking extra touches, the confidence appears to have drained from all of them, the wonderkids who bagged goal after goal last season have suddenly started thinking about it too much, with the upshot being mishit shots, taking too many touches, slowing down the play and generally allowing our opponents to take a defensive shape that enables more bodies in front of the ball and more chances to get blocks.

And we have to find a way to fix it. It won’t be in the transfer market. I want attacking options as much as you, but even if we had the money, expecting one player to come in and be a panacea would be naive. We’ve scored 37 goals all season. At this rate we’re trending to hit 70 goals. If we added a 20-goal-a-season striker then the best we could hope for is that they get nine or maybe ten, which might get us up to 80 but even that as a best case scenario would only be 80-odd goals at season-end. City and Liverpool will outscore that, so regardless of the FFP implications and the fact it is highly unlikely the club get a natural born killer in front of goal coming in, the rest of the team need to step up now. There is no other option if we want to be up there.

So this next 10 days needs a solution. Is it as simple as rest in the legs and the warm weather facilitating a relaxing and re-invigorating environment that gets these players back to the free-scoring side of last season? I’m not so sure. We started off the season having gone away to the US, having got the players in shape for the new season and then we were stuttering from pretty much game one. So is it really realistic to expect that 10 days away from the UK is going to change everything?

We have to hope so. We have to hope that Arteta and his coaching staff are locked in analysis and debate, that they find some kind of answer that can cure the ailments of the attacking players right now. Do they need some kind of hypnotist to convince them that no, they aren’t chickens, but in fact are very good footballers who can – and WILL finish their chances? It seems to me that what we have been missing is instinct. The instinct to take the shot first time. The instinct to have a pop at the right moment instead of laying it off. On Sunday there were a couple of moments in which Kai Havertz took an extra touch, or a moment in which Odegaard laid the ball off when he probably should have shot, or Saka skewing it over. Right now we want the ball to sit up perfectly, in the right position, with a players body shape in the right place, for them to take the shot. It all has to be too perfect.

But football isn’t perfect. It requires adaptation, split-second reasoning, the ability to make the choices in the right moment and be rewarded for it. When I was a lot younger I remember watching a programme about footballers and how their minds worked. I can’t remember what it was called but Cristinao Ronaldo was on it as a test case. I think he was at United at the time (the first time), so gives you an idea of how long ago it was, and they put a load of those pads that you see in medical science on his body and also his head. They were trying to measure his speed of thought and movement and what their tests showed, along with a number of other tests with other footballers, was that there were similarities in brain patterns between professional footballers compared to the average amateur footballer or you and I. Again, it was many years ago so I can’t remember all of the details, but I just remember the show talking about how the way elite footballers brains are wired means that they have a greater peripheral vision than the average human, as well as the ability to react a lot quicker and make decisions a lot quicker than the average football fan. It is an act of instinct that they have.

But when you sow doubt in to that process, when you add in hesitation to a person who normally just acts on instinct, it impacts their decision making. That is what I think is happening with our players and the outcome is what we’re seeing right now. So the next 10 days are going to be pivotal for Arteta and his players not just to get some training in and rest up, but I think more importantly will be the mental reset. In fact, that mental reset is probably ten times – maybe a hundred times – more important than just getting them on the training pitches in Dubai and getting them to run shooting drills all day long. These players know where the goal is. They know how to slam a ball in from 10 yards when it’s on the training pitch. That’s not the problem; the problem is that when the stadium is full, the expectation is there and there is something on the line (points, cups, etc), they are hesitating and that doubt is creeping in.

I joked about a hypnotist, but maybe there is some kind of psychologist who could get in to some of their brains and help with the rest, a la Ted Lasso? The brain is a muscle like any other and if it has been tweaked for some of them, maybe the way you nurse it back to full fitness is to have somebody from outside of the coaching staff talking to them, getting to the bottom of the issues and then recommending some different course of action. I don’t know. I am no expert. I’m just some 40+ year old bloke who goes to watch his football team, writes about his thoughts on the club he loves every day, hopes for success. I’m just looking for answers because when you look at the performances we have a good team performing well, but there is just one aspect (the most important of all) in which we suddenly seem to have some sort of mental block over. And it also feels like the toughest one to solve. I’m not – nor have ever profess to be – an expert, but I do know that something has to change in the next 10 days. We need something to be unlocked. Otherwise this second half of the season could be a long and uncomfortable one.

Back tomorrow with more rambling. Have a good’un.