In the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s result, as well as yesterday, I decided to pretty much just stay away from all things football. I was with my family for the weekend, it was a bit of a family party, I didn’t want to ruin it by thinking too much about the last-gasp winner, because I knew it would distract me from what was a lovely evening and next day in which there was so many things to be thankful of aside from football. We conceded a last-second goal. It sucks.

I went for a walk before the ref had even blown the whistle. It worked to be fair. I took a deep breath, the family all agreed we’d talk about anything and everything else, I avoided the media and social media for around 36 hours.

And I realised that’s the challenge with football and that’s the world we live in these days; the need for everything to be ‘hot takes’ and ‘banter’. The weaponisation of other people’s misery is something that has become a mainstay of football these days and so by completely cutting off all of the oxygen to it for me personally, I was able to just get on and have a great weekend with my parents, brother, niece and nephew. I heartily recommend it.

I suspect what also had an impact in minimising my overall feeling of frustration was the context in which everything has unfolded. As I’m sure you’ve know doubt been exposed to if you’ve been reading all the social media stuff over the last couple of days after the defeat to Villa, Arsenal have gone to some of the hardest away grounds in the country now and yet still we are two points clear. We’ve also done it against the backdrop of an injury crisis that has bordered on farcical. When we get to the Christmas period I’ll have another look at how many days we have missed players due to injury as a collective; I can imagine that we’re up there at the top of the league for that, yet still we find ourselves top of the league on points too.

The biggest thing I think most of us are hoping to see from this result is a positive reaction from the team. They need to use that feel as a fuel for the fire within their bellies. The hurt they experienced – visibly shown after Buendia’s goal – needs to be kept within them and used to ensure they try their hardest to never let that experience come to fruition again. That means going out and winning football matches again. It means trying to get on another 18-year unbeaten streak. It means getting back on the wagon and although I want to see big-style rotation on Wednesday night against Club Brugge, those that are on the pitch still need to using that defeat as a tonic to drive them to win this football match. You go out there and beat Brugge on Wednesday to essentially guarantee Champions League top eight spot, then you’re already back on the wagon and ready to go again at home to Wolves for the Saturday night kick off.

I’m not really sure I want to say much more than that today. I think I want to let the dust settle after the defeat on Saturday and then use tomorrow to focus on Brugge rather than reflect back on what has happened. If you fancy a bit of a post match review then you can check out Amanda and James’ post match pod here. Other than that I’ll put a pin in today’s musings and be back tomorrow as we look at to Brugge.

See you then.