It was a rough week for Arsenal, and now is the time to respond.

Two matches against Swansea City and Spurs are absolutely crucial going forward, but Arsène Wenger took a moment on Tuesday to look back and explain the poor performance against Manchester United on Sunday afternoon.

The 3-2 defeat came just days after the side lost to Barcelona, and the manager attributes some of Sunday’s disappointment to that 2-0 scoreline against the Spanish champions.

“We gave a lot against Barcelona and a disappointing result certainly had an impact on our belief against Man United so we want to focus on the positives and recover from that (defeat) and give our best until the end of the season,” said the boss.

Arsenal gave their best against Barcelona and matched them for 70 minutes before conceding twice to Lionel Messi late on. It can happen to anyone and, on the whole, there were far more positives to take than negatives.

Nonetheless, it did seem to affect the players. Another poor result on Sunday may well have rocked the camp, but Wenger was quick to remind the media that Manchester united are a pretty big club too, even with first team players missing.

“We played against two good teams, we did not play against a League 2 team on Tuesday night we played against Barcelona, there’s a lot of mental involvement in that. After we went to Old Trafford and it was two difficult games.”

Two difficult games, two disappointing results.

A home match against Swansea won’t be easy but is nowhere near as daunting as the last two fixtures. The same can’t be said of Saturday’s trip to White Hart Lane.

This is another week, we have another two games, and let’s hope we come out the other side with a completely different feeling to this one.