Piers Morgan wasted no time in criticising Mikel Arteta following Arsenal's bruising 3-0 defeat to bitter rivals Tottenham in a crucial north London derby.
The Gunners were blown away by Spurs after a nightmare first half that saw Rob Holding sent off for a "stupid" foul and Harry Kane score twice, only to concede just minutes into the second period as Heung-min Son wrapped it up.
Fans were left fuming with the disastrous result and Arsenal supporter Morgan joined them, once again lamenting the departure of striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, as Spurs went within a point of their old foes and could leapfrog them into fourth place by the time they next play.
A seething Morgan, whose team's Champions League ambitions were dented, tweeted: "Can Arteta-crazed Arsenal fans remind me again why I should trust a process that involves spending £250million in two years, giving our best striker to Barcelona, and losing five of our last 10 league games in a crucial run-in with nothing else to play for? I'm struggling."
Arteta refused to publicly blame his players for the loss, though, instead, taking issue with referee Paul Tierney's decision to show centre-back Holding two yellow cards in seven minutes during an awkward post-match interview to Sky Sports. "If I say what I think I am suspended for six months," the Gunners boss claimed.
"I don't know how to lie so I prefer not to say what I think. I cannot say what I think. I am not unhappy with my players. I am proud of my players. I want the referees to come in front of the camera and explain his decisions. It's a shame because such a beautiful game was destroyed today.
"The decision was made. We can't change it. The referee has to make a decision in football." Arteta, who also lost centre-back Gabriel Magalhaes to injury late on, added: "Our focus is Newcastle [where they will visit on Monday]. This game is history. Gabriel felt something so hopefully Ben [White] will be fit and Gabriel will recover as we do not have enough players in the backline.
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"This game is history. Now it's Newcastle. This is gone. It went out of our hands and we have to accept it. Now we need to be the team that you saw from the beginning. You lose a football match in the conditions we lost them. It's painful.
"But we have a huge match on Monday so we will try to beat them. We have two games to play each. It's in our hands and now we have to do our jobs. We showed from the beginning in this game."
