Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta insists his players must be wary about the threat of relegation hanging over the club.
Saturday's 2-1 Premier League defeat at Everton left the Gunners just four points above the bottom three.
Arteta's side have won just four times in 14 games this season and they have collected 14 points from a possible 42.
Arsenal have some brief respite from the league this week as they host Manchester City in the last eight of the Carabao Cup on Tuesday night.
And speaking ahead of that game, the Spaniard said: "When you are in this position and you have the points we have at the moment we have to look and be careful because we haven't been a lot of time in this position.
"I think last year when I came in we were in a very similar position and the same talk was around the place.
"It's normal because we need to start picking up points and then forget about it, start looking up the table much further.
"When you look at the table you start getting conclusions pretty quickly."
It is nearly a year to the day since Arteta took charge at the Emirates Stadium, replacing Unai Emery.
The Spaniard has overseen 27 wins in his 51 games as boss, drawing 10 matches and losing 14.
He has come under pressure in recent weeks following a poor run of results. The Gunners' last win in the league came on Sunday, November 1 at Manchester United while they have also endured four success home league defeats.
Arteta admits the past 12 months have been a challenging time for him and the club.
"I could think about a lot of challenges that we've been through this year for many different reasons," he said.
"Some internally at the club, some externally with the pandemic, as well some results we've picked up in the last few months in Premier League.
"Probably I couldn't imagine all the nice moments we had when I stepped in and I knew the challenges we were facing, that we were going through a couple of years or more.
"Some really positive highlights, [but] obviously now everything is looking a bit more negative because our form in the Premier League."
Tuesday's clash with City gives Arteta and Arsenal some welcome distraction from their Premier League campaign.
Asked if he felt it was an opportunity to kickstart the club's season, the manager said: "This is what we want to use it for.
"As well this is a competition that we want to try to win. We had two difficult opponents before with Leicester and Liverpool.
"We managed to beat them both and now we're playing at home, we're one step closer to Wembley.
"It's a really nice game for us to play because it's the type of game we're looking for through the season."
