London, Feb 1 : Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has launched a fierce attack on his players after branding them “naive“ following a devastating 3-1 defeat against Manchester United.

Wenger said it would take “something special“ for them to get back into the title race after losing to bitter rivals Manchester United.

“We were naive. We were never close in our marking, and you do not win big games like that. It’s difficult to accept but easy to explain: we were poor defensively and offensively, cohesion-wise, and delivered an off the mark performance completely. It’s a massive disappointment for us,” The Mirror quoted Wenger, as saying.

“We were poor defensively and offensively. We didn’t really have much cohesion in the team. We gave them too much room. There were massive individual errors. That’s why we were well beaten. We gave them too much room and were naive. We have to stick together and put in a better performance at Chelsea next Sunday,” he said.

“Next Sunday, we have to deliver another (kind of) performance before we can think about winning the game. We have to deliver a completely different performance about this,” Wenger said.

Arsenal was beaten by Manchester United’s in-form Wayne Rooney who scored his 100th Premier League goal in a stunning man-of-the-match performance.

United boss Sir Alex Ferguson paid tribute to Rooney by calling him “unbelievable.”

“I think he was the key point for us because they just couldn’t handle him. Everything was played towards him, behind him or in front of him, he was on it all the time. It was really great play today,” Ferguson said. (ANI)