Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger attacks his team's 'lack of concentration, communication and co-ordination'

He also accused his team of not having enough “individual urgency” over their current plight.

The Arsenal manager said that such were the “huge frustrations” of his side’s desperate form following the 4-3 loss at Ewood Park — their third loss in five Premier League games – that the club’s whole season now depended “on how well we respond to this disappointment and how quickly we can cut out the mistakes”.

The pressure on Wenger is growing, with doubts over whether he has the appetite to reverse Arsenal’s fortunes. It is a crisis compounded by the apparent lack of leadership at the top of the club.

Arsenal lie 17th in the Premier League table having won just one match, only a point above the relegation places and with the worst goal difference – minus eight — of any club in the top flight.

Their misery was compounded by scoring two own goals against Blackburn for which Wenger did not absolve Alex Song and Laurent Koscielny, the players involved, from blame. “When you score an own goal, you have to look at yourself,” he said. “It is never completely out of your reach where you have no chance at all. All the rest, you have to look at yourself.”

Wenger admitted that with two new defenders, Per Mertesacker and Andre Santos, in the back line, it would take time for his team to gel and that his players needed to work more on the training ground.

“I believe there is a little question of time, timing,” he said. “Andre Santos and Per Mertesacker are new, but they were not especially guilty on the goals. But maybe as a unit we need more time to work.”

Nevertheless Wenger insisted that the crisis would not affect his team selection for this evening’s Carling Cup third-round tie at home to League Two side Shrewsbury Town, who beat Premier League newcomers Swansea City to reach this stage of the competition. “I had my team in my head before the Blackburn game and it will remain exactly the same,” he maintained.

That team is set to include new signing Park Chu-Young, who arrived from Monaco, with the South Korean striker making his debut in attack alongside Marouane Chamakh in a reshaped side.

Wenger is also set to include Japanese midfielder Ryo Miyaichi, Emmanuel Frimpong, Carl Jenkinson, Francis Coquelin and the exciting £12 million arrival from Southampton, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, in his line-up along with Yossi Benayoun and Kieran Gibbs. Theo Walcott is likely to be rested along with the senior players in the squad.

“Park is good in every area,” Wenger said. “He is good in the air, good technically, he is mobile and that’s why he is an adaptable striker who can play up front, behind the striker. That’s why we went for him. What I like with him is that he is very mobile and that’s the basis of our game.

“We have a big squad now and we want to make use of that squad. I will give a chance for young players to shine and find the right mixture in this competition between keeping our faith in young players and, of course, winning the games. That means having the right balance between experience and youth.”

Despite Arsenal’s difficult summer and opening to the campaign, Wenger said he remained confident that his squad can still perform well. “We have had a bad start but I believe we can bounce back and be very strong this season,” he said.