Arsenal lost their fourth away game on the trot as Crystal Palace beat them 3-0 at Selhurst Park on Monday. With the loss, Arsenal’s top-four chances took a major hit as they are now seven points behind fourth-placed Manchester City. Arsenal are currently sixth on the table, three points behind Manchester United. With eight games to go for Arsenal, they have to try and win all of them if they want to play Champions League next season.

Once again the Arsenal fans called for manager Wenger, who has led Arsenal to top-four finishes in each of his previous 20 seasons at the helm, to leave the club after their disastrous show. Goals from Andros Townsend, Yohan Cabaye and Luka Milivojevic made sure that relegation-threatened Crystal Palace got those crucial three points to take them to 16th spot on the table with 34 points.

“The biggest thing would be letting the fans down,” said Gunners skipper Theo Walcott. “That’s not Arsenal at all. Tonight wasn’t us. We’re very disappointed and have let the fans down. We have to respond. We thought we had bounced back from that bad patch with the draw against Manchester City and win against West Ham. It doesn’t look like it after this. We don’t go out there to lose games, we work the best we can. Tonight it didn’t happen. We can only apologise.”

Wenger too was concerned about a top-four finish after yet another defeat. “Our fans are very unhappy and they come here hoping to see us win a game,” Wenger said. “Every defeat is a big worry. I’ve managed over 1,000 games and we are not used to this, it’s a big worry. Unfortunately it is like that and we have to respond very quickly and not accept it. I am determined to put things right, the worry is not me, it is that we lost a big game and it is a big worry.”