Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta refused to blame his players for their flop at Newcastle on Monday night.

The Gunners lost 2-0 to hand the top four advantage to Tottenham.

Arteta said: "We knew [what was at stake], but we didn't cope with it. We didn't compete, we never got into the game, we put ourselves in trouble time after time, we lost every duel. Every aspect of the game we were second best and Newcastle totally deserved to win the match, probably by a bigger margin as well.

"I am the maximum responsible (person) all the time. If somebody has created an expectation this year that no one in this room probably would talk about at the start of this season, it's those players that are there. I will always defend them. But tonight that's a really, really difficult thing to do.

"Now we have to swallow everything, digest it and tomorrow is another day. We will still have five days to prepare that match. We know what we have to do. There's not a lot of words I think that are needed after the performance tonight. "