I don’t really feel like writing today’s blog. I’m almost doing it this Sunday morning, purely out of habit rather than desire, because I feel like just forgetting yesterday’s match even happened.

The second that Harry Kane second goal went in, I got up from the heavily weighted Spud pub that I was in, walked out the door and headed home. We hadn’t played well enough all day to deserve anything from the game and I knew that it would be another defeat against that ‘orrible lot away from home, our recent record against them on their patch continuing to be a poor one.

So I walked home, made a few Tweets, sent a few Whatsapp messages to some Gooner mates, then dropped my phone off next to my bed, with the intention of not looking at my phone for the following 24 hours. Thankfully I have to go up two flights of stairs to get to my phone, so I didn’t have to worry too much about hearing or seeing it flash with new messages.

That’s what defeat in a North London Derby does to us though. It cuts us deep. It cuts deep because let’s face it, when you look at the two sides there’s no way we should have been losing to that lot up the road. Yes they’re in form, yes they have a good home record, but they’ve been scanning themselves late goals and victories against the run of play many times this season, so I genuinely look at their team and think that we should have enough to win or at least draw against them.

But the one thing that I always think about that lot compared to ours – and I have done over the years – is that they always seem to be more up for these games than us. When we win against the Spuds, it’s usually because our clearly better players have just played better, they’ve just played how they should play. The Spuds will have given their all, but they won’t have had sufficient quality to overcome us, so we pick up three points and move on. But I always see that they have put the effort in.

I don’t feel like you get that with The Arsenal team in this kind of game. It feels like we’re the kid on the playground who is clearly the best player in the school (or one of the best), so he doesn’t feel like he needs to try as hard.

The start of the game couldn’t have gone more perfect though. The Spuds pressed, we held them at arms length, Ospina made a good save or two, then we hit them with the old ‘rope-a-dope’ with a fine finish from Özil after a Giroud mishit. Good stuff fellas. Now, hold on to that lead but build on it.

And in the first half we did. In fact, until Kane popped up at the back post to hit home the equaliser (not sure who was marking him to be honest), we looked like we were playing our City tactic of sitting deep and letting the opposition have the ball.

The only problem with that though, was that we were not performing anywhere near the same level as we did against City, as the stats (which I haven’t looked at and probably won’t) will show. We have the ball away too cheaply in midfield and there were countless times where at City, we used the counter to relieve our defence but yesterday, we just allowed them to come back at us time and time again.

So perhaps it was inevitable that Spurs would score in the last five minutes. It was certainly preventable. Bellerin giving Rose all the time in the world to cross, Kane to jump and beat both centre halves, it was a catalogue of poor defending at the end of a game of very poor performances.

If players weren’t poor, they were anonymous, so Santi showed. Özil got a fine goal but then disappeared. Welbeck contributed to the first goal with a great run, but then spent most of the game giving the ball away. Coquelin was also quiet too I felt. Over the last half a dozen games you know he’s out there, because he’s winning tackles and distributing, but I didn’t hear him very often yesterday. Ramsey too, had a poor game, but not as poor as some of the others in the team I felt, despite what many on Twitter seem to think.

The only players who seem to have come out of yesterday with any credit were Monreal and Ospina. That says a lot about the performance.

Perhaps we scored too early? We certainly tried to replicate the ‘score first and hold what we have’ mentality. But you have to have players step up. You have to have players with enough desire to win the game and yesterday it just didn’t feel like it was there.

Now, here’s the good news, because nobody wants me to piss them off even more on a Sunday: we have an opportunity for an instant repostè. On Tuesday we play Leicester at home and the Spuds play Liverpool away. If Liverpool win, or even draw, then we need to win to recapture the points difference we’ve had over them lot. Also, as the BT Sport morons pointed out in commentary, nine of the remaining teams that we play for the rest of the season are in the bottom half of the table. The Spuds have to play Southampton and United away, City at home, Everton away. We have Chelski and Liverpool at home and United away and crucially, have played two home games less than them. We have any opportunity to instantly recapture our form by winning against Leicester, Middlesborough in the cup, Monaco at home and Crystal Palace away. If we pick up maximum points, then we’ll be back on track. But we need to not let yesterday’s game get to the team.

Forget about it boys and girls, and let’s hope the players do too.