Arsenal failed to demonstrate their fabled mental strength at Deepdale by only coming back from one goal down to win – a feat easily achieved by lesser mortals with no such strengths.

Despite refusing to show mental strength from the start of matches, thus enabling them to avoid conceding goals to come back from, Arsenal have assured us that completing numerous comebacks while Chelsea simply brush most opposition aside shows traits we should be proud of.

Even though Arsenal themselves denied wanting to start matches this way, here at Cannon Towers we smell the whiff of spin from the club. For a side that don’t want to start like this, they certainly seem to do it a lot.

https://twitter.com/Arsenal/status/817787842973863936

Arsenal also had a shot on target in the first half. This is in stark contrast to waiting at least an hour to trouble the opposition keeper in order to maximise the mental strength needed to get a result.

To be fair to Arsenal, they did their best to allow Preston a larger lead but were thwarted by poor finishing and a poor offside call by the official who stopped a promising Preston attack, especially in the first half.

Speaking after the game, Arsene Wenger told the media, ‘I tried to get them to concede as many as possible so we could show our mental strength to those watching, but the plan did not work and we had to be content with only coming back from one goal down.

‘We will go back to the training pitch and try to rectify this problem for the next game.’