Arsenal manager Unai Emery insists he is not concerned about their away form despite one win since late November.
A 1-0 defeat at Everton made it 15 consecutive top-flight away matches without a clean sheet for the first time since February 1985.
And with four of their remaining six matches on the road – against Watford, Wolves, Leicester and Burnley – that is likely to determine whether or not they finish in the top four, a position they could lose to Chelsea on Monday evening.
“I think generally we are well. I don’t think we are very bad,” said Emery.
“It is a bad result, not a good performance but we are fourth.
“Our opportunity was to leave here being in the third position but we are fourth.
Arsenal manager Unai Emery is looking forward despite the defeat at Everton (Peter Byrne/PA)
“We are going to think about the next match and the next match in the Premier League is Watford away.
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“I am in my mind the same as before the match: we know it is going to be difficult.
“This was a very good opportunity to take the three points and go third but after the result we are fourth and we need to be consistent.
“We are going to have chances also in the next matches and it depends on us and on other teams.
Everton’s Phil Jagielka got the only goal at Goodison Park (Peter Byrne/PA)
“After the result we can be negative because three points less (to be won) but it is in our hands to continue taking chances to be in the top four.”
After two years without a win against the big six Everton have two in successive home matches and it puts them within a point of seventh-placed Leicester.
“We are in a fantastic run apart from the last 30 minutes against Newcastle and we lost that because of an offside goal,” said boss Marco Silva after a third successive victory.
Everton manager Marco Silva is enjoying what he is seeing from his team (Daniel Hambury/PA)
“The first three months of the season, we had a fantastic run. We had that period in December and January which were not good months for us at all and we lost some confidence.
“In those two months, the details were making the difference against us and we worked on that.
“The performances are helping us also. I can see our goalkeeper had a calm afternoon, a very good sign for us.”
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