Arteta in danger of repeating Emery mistake as pattern emerges at Arsenal

In Unai Emery's first season as Arsenal manager, a long unbeaten run over the autumn was brought to an end by Charlie Austin's late winner for Southampton at St Mary's.

The Gunners had been threatening to break into the top four after recovering from two defeats in their first two games of the season, and were still healthy in fifth after the loss.

What happened next was more concerning: the Gunners lost two more games in their next five league outings, as well as suffering a League Cup elimination at the hands of Tottenham, and some of that good work was almost instantly undone.

Three years on, Arsenal find themselves in an eerily similar situation after losing 4-0 to Liverpool. The question is whether Mikel Arteta can deliver an immediate response.

"After a defeat you need to win and get into that game with that mentality," Arteta insisted in his press conference ahead of Arsenal's Saturday lunchtime game against Newcastle United.

"The preparation is important, but what is more important at the end is; perform well, play as good as we can and we will be closer to winning the match.

He added that there are "a lot of things you can learn" from a result like the one at Anfield.

"You see the standards that you have to raise to compete with those teams in the league and how consistently they do it for every game but as well how consistently they do it throughout the game and they dominate every area, that's why they have been so successful," he said.

Arsenal have already required a response to a heavy defeat once this season, and delivered with a victory over Norwich which was far less comfortable than it might have been.

That result, in the first league outing after a 5-0 hammering by Manchester City, ended up being the start of a long unbeaten run which was only ended at Anfield last weekend.

There's an argument that, off the back of such a chastening experience, the result in the next game is more important than the performance, though the manager will naturally hope to deliver both.

The challenge, of course, comes with the opposition.

Like Norwich in September, Newcastle are yet to earn their first Premier League win of the campaign. However, unlike the Canaries during their tough start, Eddie Howe's side have been buoyed by a takeover and change in manager and will not be underestimated.

"Obviously there are some changes happening there, you can see the momentum that is building," Arteta said of Saturday's opponents.

"It's different, when you see the last game that they played as well, you see some different things.

"New manager, new coaching staff, so let's be prepared."

While Newcastle are still yet to win this season, Chelsea are the only team to beat the Magpies in the four games since Steve Bruce was dismissed as manager in October.

They showed plenty of attacking threat in their 3-3 draw with Brentford last time out, and forward Allan Saint-Maximin has spoken of the impact made by new boss Howe.

"He is a great coach for me. I don't need to see him for a year to know if he is a good coach," the Frenchman said.

"They [Howe and his team] have a nice philosophy and a nice idea, and you can see from the first game against Brentford we played more in attack and had more chances to score.

"We have to keep going with this and concede less goals and I am sure we will win more games."

The history is in Arsenal's favour going into Saturday's meeting, with the Gunners winning the last 10 meetings between the sides in north London.

However, it will be impossible for last week's humbling defeat against Liverpool not to have left its mark on the team in some respects.

The challenge now is to channel the energy from that loss to deliver an instant response, not just on Saturday but across the busy period coming up.

Arteta has already produced this kind of response once this season. Now it's time to prove his team is still on the right track.