Former Premier League midfielder Carlton Palmer has slammed Arsenal for losing "their identity", with Mikel Arteta's men currently sitting 19th in the table.

Arsenal made it back-to-back defeats over the weekend after being utterly outclassed by London rivals Chelsea in a 2-0 loss at the Emirates.

Chelsea's new £97.5m signing Romelu Lukaku absolutely dominated the home side, scoring on his second debut for the club and bullying central defender Pablo Mari for the entire 90 minutes.

This, of course, comes after the Gunners' opening day defeat to newly-promoted Brentford, and Palmer has been left unimpressed by what he has seen from this current group of players from the red side of north London.

"They've now lost their identity," the ex-Leeds United and Southampton player exclusively told FFC. "When I used to play against Arsenal, they had an identity, hard to beat.

"Lee Dixon, Tony Adams, Steve Bould, Martin Keown, Nigel Winterburn, Patrick Vieira. They had a spine in that side that was nasty. They were hard to play."

Two games in and coming up against a very good Chelsea side with a bunch of first-team players missing, there is no reason to hit the panic button just yet as far as this season in isolation goes.

But fans will surely be expecting the club to start picking up some points after their next Premier League clash against champions Manchester City at the Etihad.