Arsenal suffered a shock 1-0 defeat to Everton to deny their Premier League title hopes, while Liverpool’s woes continued following their 3-0 loss at Wolves.
In 20 league games this season, Arteta’s team has only lost twice. In the 60th minute, James Tarkowski headed in the winning goal for Everton.
The only other league loss the Gunners had was at Manchester United in September.
Arsenal still has a five-point lead over Manchester City, who is in second place, but the champions can close the gap to two points if they win at Tottenham on Sunday.
“This is not going to be a rose pathway,” said Arteta of Arsenal’s road to the title.
“This is going to be tricky and we will have to dig in and play much better than we did today.”
Everton had lost four straight league games at Goodison Park, which hadn’t happened since 1958.
Frank Lampard lost his job because of how bad the team was doing, and Sean Dyche’s new job got the boost it needed by giving the team its first win in 11 games.
“The minimum requirement is maximum effort and we saw that today,” said Dyche after his first game in charge.
While Everton improved their chances of staying in the Premier League, their Merseyside rivals Liverpool lost their fourth game in a row. In their last seven games, Liverpool has only won one of them.
Jurgen Klopp’s team is in 10th place and 11 points behind the top four. This is Klopp’s worst season in seven years as manager.
Liverpool hasn’t lost three straight away league games since 2012. They have already given up more goals in the league this season than they did all of last season.
When Liverpool played a struggling team that started the game in the relegation zone, Joel Matip turned Hwang Hee-cross chan’s into his own net after just five minutes.
After 12 minutes, Craig Dawson, who was playing his first game for Wolves, scored from 10 yards out to make it 2-0.
Wolves fans teased Klopp by chanting, “You’re getting fired in the morning!” Ruben Neves finished off Adama Traore’s cross in the 71st minute to finish off the rout.
“Obviously it was a horrible start. Two goals which cannot happen like that. We were 2-0 down because of our own fault,” Klopp said.
“We were passive in that period. I cannot explain it. There is no excuse for it.
“I’m so disappointed and angry about the first 15 minutes. We better change it. That’s true, 100 percent. I have no words for it really, I’m sorry.”
