This was our worst performance this season – Mikel Arteta after loss against Fulham

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta admitted it was their worst performance after their 2-1 loss against Fulham on Sunday. Bukayo Saka opened the scoring for the Gunners on five minutes, but Fulham took all three points after goals from Raúl Jiménez and Bobby De Cordova-Reid.

This was Arsenal’s second consecutive loss after their 2-0 loss against West Ham United. Arteta admitted it was a disappointing performance from his players and they will need to turn the tables.

“We certainly need that reset after today, because that’s going to be in our tummy for a few days,” Arteta said.

“The game against West Ham feels very different, so you can move on. It’s football, it can happen.

“What happened today cannot happen again, because if you do that, we will never have the chance to be where we want to be. Today could have been a beautiful day to end the year, that’s for sure.

“But these are the margins, and you have to try and find the bar. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror, because today’s performance is the worst we have played all season.

“Painful and a sad day, that’s how I would sum it up. We had the chance to be top of the table after 20 games with the consistency that we’ve shown.

“We haven’t managed well enough to earn the right to win the game. Three days ago we lost a game that we deserved to win; today was a very different story.”

On the other hand, midfielder Declan Rice added Arsenal needed to be more ruthless after Saka’s early opening goal.

“Today when you go 1-0 up you need to take more control, have more self-belief, more desire and the mentality needs to be better. We need to demand more from each other,” Rice said on Sky Sports.

“I am not saying we didn’t do it, because we still tried to push for more. But ultimately Fulham have won the game and we have to look at why they won the game.

“Once we went 1-0 up, we had to push on again, go for more. In this league there is no room to mess up. There are so many good teams around you, and obviously we want to be pushing up the top end of the table. It is a tough one to take today.”

Arsenal will next face Liverpool in the FA Cup third round on Sunday.