Mikel Arteta says his Arsenal team are facing a huge challenge with a number of senior players currently unavailable.
The Gunners were comprehensively beaten by Chelsea on Sunday evening as Arteta's side lost their second Premier League game in a row.
Summer signing Ben White was ruled out of the game after testing positive for coronavirus, while the likes of Hector Bellerin and Thomas Partey were on the sidelines through injury.
Arteta was given a further blow with the news that Kieran Tierney and Gabriel Martinelli were forced off injured in the second half.
"Yeah they had to limp off," said Arteta after the game.
"KT [Tierney] had an issue with his quad and Gabi [Martinelli] was cramping.
"With Bukayo they have not played 90 minutes for a long time, but we have to ask them to do it.
"It’s really challenging at the moment. We’re missing nine players and the majority of them are big senior players.
"We put a team out there that will probably be unprecedented in the history of this football club. They are trying their best but at the moments it’s not enough to win football matches.
"We cannot control that. We try to explain when we can what we are facing but the expectation for this club is always that we will win.
"When the players are back and they will need some time to get back as well, hopefully it can be different. The good thing is the narrative in football changes really quickly.
