I am still recovering from my World Cup high, admits Arsenal defender Per Mertesacker

The Gunners defender realises his responsibilities and is confident of returning to full focus soon

‘It is nearly 100 days after the World Cup, time to raise the bar,’ says Per Mertesacker (Getty Images)

Per Mertesacker is the lone rock in Arsenal’s defence, their one fit centre-back, and he is not finding it easy. However, it is not just the pressure of the season that has been troubling Mertesacker. It is the difficulty of remotivating himself after what will be the highlight of his career, winning the World Cup this summer with Germany.

After Arsenal’s 2-1 victory at Anderlecht on Wednesday night, Mertesacker spoke candidly about mental fatigue and the difficulty of readjusting to the rhythms of the club game just weeks after the final in the Maracana Stadium.

“For me personally, it is difficult at the moment,” Mertesacker revealed. “It was a really long season last year, and to come back from the World Cup and get the motivation back. I am nearly back but you can feel there is something missing at the moment. The belief and the mentality is there, with these games the motivation will come back quicker.”

Having returned to pre-season just four weeks after the World Cup final against Argentina, Mertesacker said the events of June and July had not fully sunk in yet.

“We didn’t even have time to celebrate properly, “ he said. “You realise, month by month, what happened, but we are still not there. Maybe in five or 10 years we can really realise what was going on there. But we didn’t even have time to celebrate.

“We came back to Berlin, got on the stage, waved our hands, showed the World Cup and then everyone disappeared to their family, to get some holidays, to get some rest, calm, and it was very difficult, to get into a proper holiday, where you feel the holiday. Then the restart is even more in your head than anything else, that was really a problem.”

Four weeks after the final, Arsenal won the Community Shield against Manchester City and Mertesacker – who started pre-season the following day – found it difficult to see his team-mates on the pitch without him. “We started [pre-season] literally when the season started,” he said. “I’ve never experienced that. We won a cup, the Community Shield, and we weren’t there at the time. We were still on holiday, that was really strange.”

Mertesacker, though, realises his responsibilities and is confident of returning to full focus soon. “It is nearly 100 days after the World Cup,” he said. “It is time to raise the game, raise the mentality, to come back and just think about Arsenal.”

Mertesacker made just as honest an assessment of his team as he did of his own form, after a very fortunate win over Anderlecht. “The last five minutes were great, the 85 minutes before we lacked a bit of everything,” he said, summing the game up perfectly.

Arsenal play at Sunderland on Saturday in the Premier League but Mertesacker admitted they need to improve after just two league wins this season.

“Everyone knows that it is a difficult start to the season for us, and the confidence is not as we want it,” Mertesacker said. “The character is good and the mentality is good. But football-wise we lack a few things.

“The passing game is not as efficient as last year. We are not at our best, we have to admit that. We have to be honest to ourselves and train harder.”

Mertesacker diagnosed that Arsenal need to be stronger and sharper on the ball, moving it wide rather than endlessly trying to pick their way through the middle.

“I think we have to do better with our own possession,” he admitted, “to put more pressure on them [the opposition], not to lose so many balls in the middle of the park, and to play more in wide areas. I think it is better to expose them there, instead of playing one-twos through the middle. It doesn’t work as much as last season, so we have to work on that.”

The one positive Mertesacker took from Wednesday night was the winning goal by close friend Lukas Podolski, whom the defender rates as the best finisher he has ever played with, even as he is in a “difficult period”.

“You can wake him up any second in the day and he will score with his left foot. We need it sometimes. We play a lot of football around the box, but when it comes to finishing and shooting, we lack that. So he gives us another quality.” which he had to find on.