Despite the ‘damaging’ 0-3 defeat against Crystal Palace, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger remains hopeful of staging a comeback, saying he is determined to put things right.
Goals from Andros Townsend, Yohan Cabaye and Luka Milivojevic inflicted a fourth successive away defeat in the Premier League on Arsenal on Monday night at the Selhurst Park.
The sixth-placed Gunners needed three points to keep them in the hunt for Champions League qualification, but the defeat leaves them seven points off the pace.
Wenger, who was subjected to chants of “get out of our club” following the defeat, said, “The defeat is damaging, of course, but I’m disappointed and determined to put things right.”
“You understand that our fans are very unhappy. They came here with the hope they’d win the game. They are extremely disappointed and I can understand that, like we all are, but Crystal Palace were sharper than us,” the Guardian quoted him as saying.
Insisting that every defeat is a big worry for him, the 67-year-old said that his team need to respond very quickly and not accept the humiliating defeat.
“Every defeat is a big worry. I’ve managed over 1,100 games for Arsenal and we’re not used to that [kind of performance], so it’s a big worry. We have to respond very quickly and not accept it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Arsenal winger Theo Walcott also apologised to the fans following the humiliating defeat.
“The biggest thing was letting the fans down tonight,” Walcott said via his club’s official website. “We all did and that’s not Arsenal at all.”
“We thought we’d bounced back well against Manchester City and West Ham at home, but tonight that wasn’t us at all,” he added.
The 28-year-old maintained that whenever they go on the field, they try their best to win.
“We don’t go out there to lose games, we try to work the best we can but tonight it just didn’t happen. All we can do is apologise for that performance tonight,” he said.
“We go out on the pitch and we try to do a job, so we’ve let the manager down, like we have with the fans. That’s all I can say,” he added.
A fifth win in six matches has taken Palace six points clear of the bottom three, with a game in hand on Swansea and Hull City below them, and followed up their eye-catching victory at Chelsea earlier this month.
(With ANI inputs)