Mikel Arteta has refused to be drawn on Arsenal’s title chances after his side suffered a damaging 1-0 defeat at Newcastle United on Saturday.

Alexander Isak‘s 12th-minute header settled a hard-fought contest at St James’ Park in which Arsenal struggled to break down the hosts and registered just one shot on target.

Arsenal are now seven points behind leaders Liverpool after their win over Brighton later on Saturday, and Arteta said: “I understand that, but after eight, nine or 10 games last year we didn’t [talk about the title] and we won’t talk about it now.

“It’s about how you react to that. We’re not going to find the right words or answers to describe how we feel. We have to put it on that field on Wednesday night against Inter Milan [in the Champions League].”

Arteta suggested Newcastle made the game more physical after Isak’s goal and believes his team should have coped with the task better.

“We deserved to lose today,” he said. “I thought we started really well and were really dominant. We didn’t defend the box well enough. Credit to them. They scored a great goal with a good ball.

“Then the game changes and you start to play a different game. You have to adapt and we didn’t do that well enough. I am very frustrated.

“We got dragged into a game they are looking for constantly and we couldn’t play the game that we wanted.”