Arsenal defender Per Mertesacker believes his side could have challenged Chelsea for the Premier League title this season without what he describes as a "World Cup hangover" in the opening weeks of the season.
A host of Arsenal stars struggled to find top form following their exploits with their national teams in Brazil last summer, with the Germany players in Arsene Wenger's squad especially affected by an early-season dip in form after their coronation as world champions.
Fellow German World Cup winners Mesut Ozil and Lukas Podolski struggled for form and fitness in the first half of this season, with Mertesacker suggesting the sluggish start was crucial in allowing Chelsea to build up a healthy lead at the top of the table.
"The first months, in particular, were quite difficult to come down and to forget that, forget the feeling of being a world champion," Mertesacker told reporters.
"That's what you need to have, you need to forget about that, to come down a bit, to calm down and to restart. That took nearly half a year to realise that.
"Most of the players got injured, I avoided that but didn't play at my best. That was because I hadn't experienced this feeling before. I didn't know how to handle the situation. I tried to forget about that, about the World Cup.
"At one point I was happy not to get an injury, but on the other hand it was very difficult to find the form and the fitness because we hadn't had that preseason and the season was already being played when we just started. It was very strange.
"Mentally it affects your body as well, you know. You can't say one or the other. It was just the whole thing. Without preseason, physically as well to come back to compete at Premier League level.
"I knew maybe there would be some criticism to form, but I didn't get injured so I tried to prepare even more -- doing more yoga, more treatment, more things like that to come to a certain level where I can compete again. From my experience, it took half a year."
Mertesacker revealed that Wenger tried to educate him on how to handle his new status as a world champion, with the Gunners boss having experience of a similar scenario as Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit returned to Arsenal after their World Cup win with France in 1998.
"He spoke to me because he had a few examples for me," Mertesacker stated. "It was very interesting for me how certain players coped with the situation. A few managed to deal with it and a few didn't.
"I think he mentioned Vieira who coped with it really well. He gave me kind of a challenge and said: 'I want you to come back quickly and find your form quickly' because he knew it was going to be difficult.
"In the second part of the season, when the injured players came back and we had more competition, more players, more centre-backs as well, we could rotate a bit, share, that's something we created.
We have stability and we tried to benefit from that for the FA Cup final and next season as well."
Mertesacker went on to suggest Arsenal's experience of playing four games at Wembley in a little over a year will help their cause in Saturday's FA Cup finale against Aston Villa, as he suggested the challenge of playing at a neutral venue has unsettled his teammates in the past.
"We know how difficult it is to compete at Wembley," he added. "It's different from being away or at home -- you can't compare it.
"We have a certain mental strength in this competition to come back. We've been successful at Wembley, we've done well there but not shown our best form which is weird.
"We just have to be aware that anything can happen on the day. If we turn up with a good performance at Wembley then it's difficult to stop us. You can feel the excitement about Wembley with the British boys but also [because it is] the final of the FA Cup. It's special in every country and everyone is really proud to be involved in a big football night.
"Everyone is really up for it. It's another special occasion for us to show we are capable of winning something. But we need the right attitude to compete at that high level and we need to turn up with our best performance, maybe of the season, to grab the trophy again."