Just one week on from the joy of celebrating a second FA cup triumph in a row, this weekend proved to be chastening experience for the Arsenal players on international duty. So it was back down to earth with a bump for the Gunners in the France and England squads.
Kieran Gibbs had to watch from the bench as the England boss gave the whole 90 minutes to the steady but unexciting Ryan Bertrand from Southampton and Theo Walcott did not do much better, with less than 10 minutes at the end of the game despite England never looking like scoring.
It was even worse for the French players Olivier Giroud and Laurent Koscielny who both started against Belgium. The whole team struggled and the service to the big striker was non existent but it does not help his cause that two of the three goals for France came after he was subbed and the first was a penalty which he had nothing to do with.
It was even worse for Koscielny as he and his defensive team mates were all over the place and could easily have conceded more than the four they did let in.
On a selfish note, however, there is good news for Arsenal as none of our stars were overplayed and none of them picked up any sort of knock and that is the most important thing for us ahead of a crucial and early start to the next Premier League campaign.