Tierney says sorry to fans and blames 30pt Inter woe Blk on Cond squad 30pt Inter Blk Cond

KIERAN TIERNEY assessed the carcass of Arsenal’s woeful season and admitted: “Blame the players – it’s terrible.”

The Gunners’ 1- 0 defeat by Burnley on Sunday condemned them to their worst league start since 1974 and, incredibly, leaves rookie manager Mikel Arteta facing a relegation battle. Scotland defender Tierney faced up to the shambles after Granit Xhaka became the sixth red card of Arteta’s 12- month reign and apologised to the supporters, saying: “We are Arsenal. We need to do better than this.” Four consecutive home defeats, for the first time since 1959, have left the Gunners marooned in 15th place, just five points above the drop zone.

And with in- form Southampton next up at the Emirates tomorrow night, it could get even worse for Arteta before it gets better. Tierney said: “There is no way to disguise it – it is terrible.

“It’s not what we are, not where we are, as a club. It’s not what the fans deserve, it’s not what the manager deserves, it’s not what the board deserves.

“It’s us players who need to take responsibility for this. It is on us and nobody else. We have a great manager and we believe in him 100 per cent. The blame is on us, nobody else.

“There’s not much else you can say – it’s not good enough in any way. That’s the only way you can describe it.

“We should be taking chances. We are not scoring enough goals.”

Asked what was going wrong, after Arteta’s promising start brought the FA Cup to north London four months ago, Tierney shrugged: “Everything is going wrong, isn’t it?

“We are working on the right things, we are doing the right things in training, we are working as hard as we can, but things that can go wrong are going wrong.

“It is the lowest we have probably all felt in our careers and nobody is going to help us except ourselves.

“We just need to keep believing, keep positive. I know it is hard. I know the fans deserve much better and all I can do is apologise to every single one of the supporters through these tough times.

“We just need to work hard.

It is easy enough to

BLOW: Arsenal also came under fire when Luiz played on with a head injury say we want to do better, but we need to actually show we want to do better.”

Xhaka’s third red card in his time at the club took the wind out of his side’s display, and 2,000 Gunners fans booed their team off after Burnley’s first win at Arsenal in 46 years.

Only three Premier League clubs have scored fewer than Arsenal’s 10 goals in 12 games and Tierney acknowledged: “Confidence is massive in football.

“When everyone is out to get you, of course confidence is going to be low, but we can’t let that affect us. We can’t use that as an excuse.

“We are Arsenal. We need to be better than this and we are not performing up to standard.

“The Burnley game kind of sums up how it’s been the past few weeks. We are always looking to turn the corner, to get a win to climb up the table and unfortunately it is just not going that way right now.”

Southampton boss Ralph Hasenhuttl is expecting a backlash from the wounded hosts.

He said: “A game against Arsenal, you will not dominate for 90 minutes.

“We expect them to be very aggressive because they must win against us – and this is what you will see from the first moment on. “I expect the best possible team. Anything else would be surprising for me.

“I can learn from the Burnley game that such a game can easily have a different result.

“You see that they have played much better than the

result.”