Savinho urges Manchester City to quickly forget nightmare at Arsenal

City’s difficult season continued with a 5-1 mauling at the hands of Arsenal.

Manchester City winger Savinho looks sad after his side's 5-1 loss at Arsenal — Savinho hopes Manchester City can bounce back quickly after their heavy loss at Arsenal (Adam Davy/PA)

Manchester City winger Savinho hopes the champions’ crushing defeat at Arsenal can quickly be forgotten.

City’s frustrating campaign took another turn for the worse as they were thrashed 5-1 by the title-chasing Gunners at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.

The defeat was their seventh in the Premier League this season and left them fourth in the table, 15 points behind leaders Liverpool having played a game more.

Manchester City’s players look glum after Arsenal score their fifth goal in their 5-1 win at the Emirates Stadium — The loss was another low point in a frustrating season for the champions (Adam Davy/PA)

“It’s very difficult for us,” Savinho told the club’s website. “We can’t accept this defeat, with this scoreline.

“I think we have got to put our heads down and think about what went wrong, and what we can improve on.

“But we’ve also got to forget it and keep moving forward.

“I said when I joined Manchester City the good thing about playing here is that if you lose a game, two days later there is another chance to prove your worth and right the wrongs.

“So we’ve got more games soon and we’ll focus on showing who Manchester City are.”

After three consecutive midweek fixtures, City are actually not in action again until they return to London to face League One side Leyton Orient in the FA Cup fourth round on Saturday.

Along with the Champions League, that competition looks to be the club’s best hope of salvaging something from a season they began aiming to win a record-extending fifth successive Premier League title.

Arsenal needed just two minutes to puncture morale after last week’s uplifting defeats of Chelsea and Club Brugge as Martin Odegaard capitalised on defensive errors to open the scoring.

Erling Haaland levelled after the break but the Gunners, hoping to chase Liverpool down at the top, powered to an impressive win with further goals from Thomas Partey, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Kai Havertz and Ethan Nwaneri.

Savinho admitted City did not stick to the plan laid down by manager Pep Guardiola.

He said: “Of course we didn’t expect this scoreline. We equalised, then conceded, then conceded again.

“We started to apply some pressure but we started doing things the coach didn’t ask of us and I think that affected us a bit.

“Of course, we need to improve.”