Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny has admitted that his side's confidence has hit rock-bottom following their 2-1 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday.
The Gunners have now lost four matches in a row across all competitions for the first time since 2002 ahead of Thursday's Europa League showdown away to AC Milan - a competition which provides the final hope for Arsenal to salvage something from their season.
Koscielny refused to give up on the idea of bridging the 13-point gap which now separates them from the top four in the Premier League, but also acknowledged that it would be difficult to catch those above them in the table.
"It is very hard because when you play for a big club like Arsenal, you need to be in the top four. I don't know how but now we are in a bad situation and the results are not with us. You could see during the Brighton game, we are not confident in our quality individually and collectively. But we will fight until the end of the season," he is quoted as saying by The Mirror.
"It will be very hard to finish in the top four. We have a bad period and did not have the results we wanted. We lost our confidence a little bit and on the pitch we didn't have the confidence we need to push ourselves more and to play well with the ball. We miss a lot of passes but we need to stay together, to fight together. It is a big period for us, we know it is difficult but you need to put your head own and work every day.
"We need to win to have more freedom on the pitch and we need to stay together because it is a bad period but all the players, staff and fans need to know that we are all together. It is important to have everyone behind us. We know we are in a bad situation a bad period. We tried but nothing is with us. We tried to fight and play football but you could see the confidence is very down. We miss a lot of things during the game but we need to push more again and again.
"The confidence will be back slowly. We know we need to win to have a little bit more confidence in us. We lost a little bit of our quality but we need to stay united. It is a bad period but we need everyone who like this club – players, staff and fans – to be together and to fight to stay the highest we can. It is very difficult but football is like this. Now you focus on the next game, to prepare well. You need to put your head down and work. Just like this, we could be back at the top."
Arsenal have now lost eight and won just four of their last 13 games across all competitions.
Barney Corkhill
