Mikel Arteta slams Arsenal title chances against Man City after back-to-back defeats

Arsenal have no chance of winning the Premier League if they repeat their New Year's Eve performance against Fulham, Mikel Arteta has told his squad.

Arteta's side were top of the table at Christmas after a 1-1 draw at Liverpool, but lost 2-0 at West Ham over Christmas and were beaten at Fulham on New Year's Eve. With City beating Everton and Sheffield United, their six-point lead over the champions has disappeared in the space of the week, and Arsenal have slipped to fourth.

Liverpool and Aston Villa are first and second on 42 points, with Liverpool facing Newcastle on New Year's Day. City are third on 40 points, ahead of Arsenal on goal difference. After a nightmare week, Arteta has warned his Arsenal players that they won't have a chance of winning the title if they don't improve.

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"We weren't good enough, simple as that," said Arteta reflecting on Arsenal's slip-up. "We lost the game three days ago [vs West Ham] that we fully deserved to win because we were so good. But today we were not at the level.

"At the end of the day it wasn't enough, it really wasn't good enough in our purpose. Defensively we were second best in our reaction. Today was our worst game of the season. The pace, the purpose we have in attack, defensively we were second best, we could not dominate and had issues because of that.

"We didn't deserve to win. When you have opportunities to go top of the league on 31 December and now end up with really bad feeling, that is football. The lines are really thin.

"If we play like we played in the other 19