On Friday, Arsene Wenger once again blamed Arsenal’s horrific start against Liverpool on the Gunners’ 3-1 defeat to Manchester United on December 2.

It’s been three weeks since United killed the game off at the Emirates and went 2-0 ahead within 11 minutes thanks to individual errors from Arsenal. However, according to Wenger, the lads are still dealing with psychological factors linked to it.

“I felt that in the first half we were paralysed and frozen,” Wenger told BT Sport post-match.

“We gave away too many balls from Liverpool and always looked second best.

“It was mainly down to a psychological factor and you could see the bearing the Manchester United game where we had the bad start was absolutely there.”

THAT’S why we went 1-0 down to Liverpool in the first half on Friday. See, now it makes so much sense.

What is the Manchester effect?

It seems that blaming the United defeat is Wenger’s new way of explaining away the confidence issues that have surrounded our team for years. Playing poorly against big teams has been something Arsenal have been guilty of for a decade. Therefore, I’m not sure why it’s news now or why the boss is still using it as an excuse.

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LONDON, ENGLAND – DECEMBER 22: Arsene Wenger, Manager of Arsenal reacts during the Premier League match between Arsenal and Liverpool at Emirates Stadium on December 22, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)

What’s more, if 11 professional athletes can’t bounce back after one defeat three weeks later, what on earth are they doing? It’s pathetic, immature and downright bizarre how fragile this teams’ egos are.

Although other top teams do seem to suffer with confidence issues and blips in form, I can’t recollect a club consistently behaving like Arsenal have year after year. And it only seems to be getting worse under Wenger.

How do we stop it? We can’t keep getting stuck in this cycle of going on poor runs every time we suffer a defeat. It’s ridiculous.

Unfortunately, the only common denominator I can see that has to change is Wenger.