Crystal Palace midfielder James McArthur said the team’s heavy 4-1 defeat to Arsenal was down to the Gunners’ quality and ‘very poor’ mistakes.

The Eagles were taken apart in a hectic four-goal glut inside 23 minutes, with full back Nacho Monreal grabbing a goal and two assists.

Arsène Wenger’s men were already two-up in 10 minutes through the Spain international and winger Alex Iwobi before Laurent Koscielny made it three, and when striker Alexandre Lacazette scored the fourth, the game was over half an hour into the game.

McArthur made no excuse of how poor the team played in north London, particularly in the initial stages.

He told News Shopper: “[It was down to our] mistakes and Arsenal played really well today.

“They are a very good side. They have got top quality players and with the start that we did it was always hard from there. It gave them more encouragement, gave them confidence, and they took it out of us.”

When asked about Roy Hodgson’s words during half-time, he added: “[He said] just to try and do better than we did in the first half. Try and come in with at least a draw or a win for the second half.

“We did that, but to be honest the first half performance was that bad that there’s no credit due in football for that performance.”

There will now be 10 days until Palace are back in action when they visit cross-city rivals West Ham United at the London Stadium.

Given Yohan Cabaye has become the latest victim to the Eagles’ injury woes when he was stretchered off at the Emirates, the 10-day break comes as a reprieve.

McArthur said: “We’ll take this. It’s probably a good time for us because we’ve got a lot of injuries as well, so it gives us another 10 days for everyone to see where we’re at and try and get everyone out on the field.

“The mistakes today were very poor, and we need to learn from it.

“We’ve been very, very unlucky with injuries and it’s not like we’re getting injuries of two weeks or a week, they seem to be quite bad injuries right now.

“So hopefully our luck will change in that department but everyone who is out there playing is doing a good job.

“We’ll be looking to bounce back. I think it’s two in 12 we’ve lost, and it’s both to Arsenal, so we need to go back to what we were doing and make the next game [against West Ham] right.”