On Monday night Arsenal suffered yet another setback in what has been a testing campaign, going down 3-0 to strugglers Crystal Palace and dealing a big blow to their chances of a top-four finish.
Goals from Andros Townsend, Yohan Cabaye and a Luka Milivojevic penalty inflicted a fourth successive away defeat in the Premier League on the Gunners – the worst of under-fire manager Arsene Wenger’s career at the club.
Particularly troubling was the fact that Wayne Hennessey had one of his easier nights in the Palace goal as the Gunners failed to muster a single shot on target in the second half.
As Arsenal faithfuls expressed their discontent over the shocking display with chants of “You are not fit to wear the short”, captain for the night Theo Walcott acknowledged the players had not got anywhere near the performance levels expected of them, Goal writes.
“The biggest thing would be letting the fans down,” Walcott said in his post-match interview.
“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.”
The England international then touched on the critical issue of passion, stating that Palace wanted victory more on the night.
“You could tell they wanted it more. You could sense that from the kick-off. It was an uphill battle.”
Arsenal now lie seven points adrift of fourth-placed Manchester City, making their return to Champions League football next season increasingly unlikely.
