Andrei Arshavin says that Arsenal absolutely must beat Liverpool to maintain their slim hopes of winning the premier league.

The Gunners have lost to both their main title rivals, Manchester United and Chelsea, in recent weeks and are now nine points behind the Blues in third place.

On Wednesday night at the Emirates stadium, they will face a resurgent Liverpool side that has gathered 17 points in the last seven games. A loss here would effectively seal Arsenal's fate in the premier league for yet another season.

The little Russian however, is not even thinking of that. "You cannot surrender", he declared in Mail Online

"In football, anything can happen. Stumbles, such as Chelsea losing to Everton, are quite possible. Then there is Chelsea's match against Manchester United [in April] when at least one rival has to drop points," the Russian was quoted as saying.

"For us, the main thing is to win our matches. The next one against Liverpool will be key. If we win, we have the chance to make up ground on the leaders and think about the title race."

"If, however, we continue our run of failure, we have to think about how we preserve what we have already got."

Looking back at last week's defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, Arshavin picked out Didier Drogba as the difference between the two sides.

"We didn't stop him [Drogba] and he made the result," he added.

"This is one of the reasons for the defeat. We were unable to cope with Drogba."