Mikel Arteta believes that it is too early to say whether Arsenal are out of the title race after the Gunners lost to Newcastle.
Today’s defeat was Arsenal’s second in as many away league matches following a loss to Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium last time out.
The result sees them slip five points behind title rivals Manchester City and seven behind Liverpool.
At full time, Arteta called for calm, saying that there are plenty of matches left for Arsenal to recover.
He said: “After eight, nine or 10 games last year we didn’t [talk about it] and we won’t talk about it now. It’s about how you react to that.
“We’re not going to find the right words or answers to describe how we feel. We have to put it on that field on Wednesday night against Inter.
“It’s not about the hope of winning the title, it’s about being our best selves every single week. Today we weren’t our best version.”
He continued, saying that Arsenal lost confidence after Newcastle took the lead.
“When we fell behind it we lacked threat and more capacity to go and hurt them.
“We weren’t consistent enough and when we gave the ball away we were in transition and allowed them to run or sustain attacks. I think we gave 17 or 18 free-kicks which stops the game constantly and that was not a good outcome for us.”
Arteta also refused to blame Arsenal’s poor performances of late on captain Martin Odegaard’s absence. The playmaking Norwegian has been limited to three appearances so far this season after sustaining an ankle injury on international duty in September.
“We don’t have him. We can discuss that all day long. We haven’t had him for the last four or six weeks and we don’t have him yet. But we have many other answers that have been very effective. Today we need to look at ourselves and congratulate Newcastle and move on.”