Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger urgently requires striker to replace Robin van ... - Telegraph.co.uk

"It's not the first time we have conceded the first goal," Arteta said. "It's very difficult. If you go ahead, it gives you a lift, the other team has to take risks, and you can cause mistakes. You can't get back in the game every time you fall behind. It's a tough ask and we haven't done it."

Pressed on the daunting 10-point gap at the top, he said only: "We have time to come back."

Wenger, similarly, made no effort to disguise his team's deficiencies, given a match that demonstrated their lack of cohesion after the international break. "It's very, very disappointing," he said. "This is a defeat that will hurt us a lot. We couldn't afford to lose a game like that. That's a worry. I feel we didn't create enough and at our level it just isn't good enough."

Uncompromising words, from a man bearing a now-familiar haggardness at his players' miscues in front of goal. "My first reaction is that maybe we underestimated the difficulty we faced," Wenger said. "If you do not start the game completely ready, in the Premier League it is not enough. I don't doubt the character and the fight of my players. But you wonder, were we mentally ready to face a game like that?"

Chris Hughton, his patently relieved Norwich counterpart, had a ready answer. "Arsenal are far too professional an outfit and they have far too much quality to treat anybody lightly," he insisted, after his players' responded to heavy defeats to Manchester United and Chelsea with this maiden Premier League victory under his stewardship. Besides, Norwich, galvanised by impressive displays from Holt and Wes Hoolahan, deserved many plaudits themselves for thwarting their opponents.

"I'm delighted, because as a manager you can take defeats very much to heart," Hughton said. "They can hurt and it takes a while to get them out of your system. But I will sleep much better now." For Wenger, alas, one sensed that this result would haunt his every waking hour.

Champions League watch

Schalke, Wednesday

Last match: Dortmund 1 Schalke 2
Huub Stevens's side travel to Arsenal having narrowly beaten Dortmund on Saturday. Ibrahim Afellay and Marco Hoger scored for Schalke; Robert Lewandowski found the net in vain for Dortmund.