No-one likes losing and to get encouragement from it implies a form of masochism, even worse is the morning after losing. The grim reality starts to sink in and gnaw at the consciousness like a some sadistic form of torture devised by the makers of the SAW films. You begin to doubt your sanity, suffer outbursts of sadness rage and despair all at once. Yet the morning after it does not get any better, I have come onto this site to see that the non arsenal supporting lunatics have been taking over the asylum. Worse still is the smug “I told you so” comments in the media. A simple observation why do Gooners reply to such provocative taunts? Did your mother never tell you that it only encourages them? Listen I never wanted the Mickey Mouse Cup anyway, but it gives me scant comfort to have to witness another public humiliation as we fail to beat a hungrier team.
Hunger for success. this is really what it is all about. Robin van Persie put himself in harms way to score the equaliser, but yet again the usual suspects failed to impress in their Arsenal shirts… Either not bothering to track back and defend, or giving the ball away very often. As for the mistake in the last minute defensive fiasco, a comedy of errors, and what is “My Ball!” in polish? Oh well there are some deluded among us who felt that winning the thing would spur us onto greater things, I happen to take the opposite take. Losing the thing will mean that Leyton Orient are in for a spanking, and woe betide Sunderland who come up next in the Premier league. That is because no professional footballer worth his salt should be able to look in the mirror and say losing is a proud part of their Curriculum Vitae.
Where to next you ask? First a moment of quiet reflection and then hopefully they will draw upon that mental strength that Arsene Wenger is always banging on about. What I would prefer is that this mental strength was converted into physical strength of hunger for the ball and the desire to finish teams off. Ben Foster played his part in keeping the long range attempts out, but let’s be honest Birmingham were themselves poor which makes our performance all the more derisory. Yet bring it on. We have much to look forward to and the pain of disappointment will be a spur to prevent that feeling from returning in some and a much needed boot up the rear end for others. So that hopefully when we reach the end of the season, we will be able to look back and see what benefits this loss bestowed upon us. Yes I am going to suggest that in a perverse kind of way losing this final will do us good in the end.
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