Arteta with an almighty task at hand now after 'Big punch in the face' from Cherries

Facing the music after third domestic defeat in a row

Mike Arteta is once again having to absorb the impact of a damaging defeat which threatens to throw Arsenal off course in the one trophy they covet above all others.

Defeat in the Carabao Cup Final followed by a shock FA Cup exit was bad enough. Losing their solid grip on the title race is even more troubling. Bournemouth left the Emirates with a fully deserved 2-1 victory after the Gunners turned in a terrible performance which leaves them looking very vulnerable ahead of next Sunday's visit to Man City.

They expected to grab a win to extend their lead at the top to 12 points. Instead it remains at nine and City now have two games in hand as well as the chance to erase the points deficit altogether if they can win at the Etihad next week.

Given the ease with which they saw off Arsenal at Wembley two weeks ago and the alarming dip in form shown by the league leaders, nobody will be backing Arsenal with any great confidence now.

"Extremely disappointing. It's a big punch in the face," said the Arsenal boss after the Saturday lunchtime loss.

"And now we have to have a reaction. It's game on. We are going to require now a bigger spirit, a lot of fight and to be very clear how we are going to approach that. There's no grey area.

"We need to be very, very strong and determined and approach it in a different way from today, especially when the game wasn't going our way.

"Today there very basic things that we did extremely badly against a team that - when you do that - they can capitalise and it becomes very chaotic and very difficult to control.

"They [Bournemouth] did a lot well but a lot of it [the defeat] is on our plate."

Arteta continued: "We apologise to the fans, take it on the chin and that's it. What I'm trying to do is give our best to the club but there were moments when we weren't at our [normal] level.

"We have to stand up individually and then as a team change things immediately on Wednesday against Sporting.

"We can't make excuses. We have to embrace it [the challenge] and enjoy the opportunity. That's one of the things that I haven't seen in the team today, that level of enjoyment at certain moments and the fight to really change the course of the game when it goes difficult.

"We need to be able to adapt to problems and resolve all of them if we are to achieve all that we want to achieve, that's clear."

Arteta added: "We know what's a stake and the fact that as a club we haven't done it for so long. But we have to focus on the things that we can control - it's not like have we have to do a lot of new things that we haven't done.

"The things we've done for nine months have taken us all the way here. We need to be critical and pick ourselves up but we have to embrace the challenge. Today is painful and a terrible feeling but tomorrow is a different day.

"If somebody had said to be in August we'd be in this position right now in April, I'm sure we'd all take it."