Jesse Marsch saw Leeds drop into the relegation zone before admitting they are “screwed” if they start blaming each other.
Marsch saw Leeds collapse to defeat after captain Luke Ayling was sent off for an X-rated challenge on Arsenal forward Gabriel Martinelli. Leeds keeper Illan Meslier also dropped a huge clanger to gift Eddie Nketiah the opening goal as Arsenal gave their top four hopes a major boost while Leeds are in serious danger.
Leeds boss Marsch said: “If we started playing the blame games with players, we’re screwed. We’ve got to stick together and fight for points, it’s not a time to point the finger. The ironic thing was this was 500 games for Luke, but it was a moment of poor judgement. But he has been an incredible part of the team since I have been here.
"Young goalkeepers can make mistakes, but the rest of his game was quite good today. We are going to need him in the last three games. We have to stay positive, stay strong and forage on. The focus is fully on Chelsea to prepare for a key game.
“We dug ourselves a massive hole and made a difficult task much, much more difficult. But our resolve and fight when the game was incredibly hard was amazing.”
Leeds were down and out after going 2-0 down inside ten minutes and having Ayling sent off before staging a late fightback with Diego Llorente setting up a tense finish.
Marsch added: “Our backs are against the wall. We are in the relegation zone but we have to fight for our lives. When I came here two months ago I knew this was not going to be easy. The group has stayed strong. Our second-half performance highlights the character of the people we have here.
"The fans and the support at this club is unreal. We want to put a performance on the pitch that honours that support.”
Arsenal boss Arteta refuted the suggestion his players eased up in the second half.
“It wasn’t taking our foot off the gas,” he added. “It was just to try to play the game that we have to in that phase. We showed a lot of maturity not to rush things and concede breaks. But we didn’t find the net in key moments to have a different last 20 minutes.
“After that the red card presented a different match. They completely changed their behaviour and how they were set up and we had to manage that in a different way. For a lot of phases we did well but we needed to score the third goal and we had the chances to do that. Then the accident happened when we conceded a set-piece goal and then some nerves had to be handled.”
