Newcastle travelled to the Emirates Stadium on a run of just one defeat from 10 matches in all competitions and buoyed by the confidence of an excellent 2-1 victory over league leaders Chelsea the previous weekend.
However, Arsene Wenger's men proved too big of a challenge as both Olivier Giroud and Santi Cazorla scored twice in a comfortable 4-1 home victory.
"I still felt even at 3-1 the game was in the balance, I just felt that the demons might return from Anderlecht," he said.
"But we couldn't get ourselves in that position and perhaps didn't deserve to.
"We didn't give up today even though we weren't playing at our best.
"Overall our team has really had great belief. They believe they can get something out of any game but today it was a bridge too far for us."
"We go on with Jak and we've got a big week ahead of us," he added. "Hopefully he can handle it until such a time when we get can goalies in."
