Football fans have mocked Mikel Arteta after the Arsenal boss provided a bizarre explanation for his side's lacklustre form in the Premier League.
Arteta faces mounting pressure after overseeing a dreadful run of form in which the Gunners have picked up just two points from a possible 21 as they linger nervously above the drop zone.
Defeats to Everton, Burnley, Wolves and Spurs have consigned Arsenal to their worst start to a campaign in 46 years, but Arteta insisted that his side have been deserving of more points by using statistics to back up his claim.
'Last year we won the game against Everton with a 25 per cent chance of winning, you win 3-2,' he said ahead of the Carabao Cup clash with Manchester City.
'Last weekend, it was a 67 per cent chance of winning, any Premier League game in history, and a nine per cent chance of losing, and you lose.
'Three per cent against Burnley and you lose, seven per cent against Spurs and you lose. There is something else apart from that. It is not just the performance on the pitch, it is something else that needs to go our way and at the moment it doesn't.
'Saying that, it doesn't care because you lose and the only thing that cares is that you lose a football match and this is what we hear.'
However, Arteta has failed to win sympathy among football supporters following his comments on Monday, with many taking to social media to ridicule the assertions made by the Arsenal boss.
One Gunners fan tweeted: 'Next time, we'll play the game on excel [sic] sheet as opposed to football field.'
Another wrote: 'There's a 100% chance we lost against Everton last week, that's the only relevant stat. Not helping himself with these comments!'
'How is this latest one real?!' one supporter said. 'The more Arteta talks about football, the more he appears not to actually understand it. This is up there with the most nonsensical rambling [sic] I've heard from any manager.'
'This the reason we are not winning a football match,' another Arsenal fan said, while @GunnerTalker said: 'That is truly stupid from Mikel I'm losing faith quickly'.
Meanwhile, one Reddit user wrote: 'Give me what Arteta is smoking, It [sic] might relieve me from this pain'.
Arteta is in desperate need of three points to give his underperforming players a boost going into the New Year. The Spaniard urged his stars to be 'fighters, not victims' heading into the busy festive period.
'You have two types of people: fighters and victims. You just need fighters, you don't want any victims,' he said.
'Victims just bring excuses, negativity and they start to blame everything that is happening around them or that is not going for them.
'You just need people who fight, people who contribute, people who are ready to give everything to the cause in these moments.'