Newcastle boss Eddie Howe admits Arsenal were too good for Sunday night's 4-1 thrashing.
Newcastle were outclassed with Joe Willock's late goal only a consolation.
Howe said: "They played well, we played poorly. We're very honest with ourselves, the first 45 minutes was not good enough.
"We were second best and didn't react well under pressure. Sometimes you go away and you're under pressure but we had to be stronger, withstand the pressure and it led to a disappointing 45 minutes.
"We can't take too many positives from today. From 45 to when they scored their third goal, we were good and the better team but the goal kills the game.
"If we scored the next goal we're back in the game and anything can happen.
"But we didn't we and conceding the third summed up our recent weeks - we haven't been good enough defensively."
He added: "Arsenal were very good, we weren't and we got punished. We were off in most aspects of our games, we didn't do the basics right.
"Arsenal put us under pressure and we made technical mistakes. Sometimes you have those spells, you have to weather them, but unfortunately we didn't do that."