Arsene Wenger refused to lay the blame for Sunday’s shock defeat to West Ham at the door of summer signing Petr Cech.

The former Chelsea goalkeeper misjudged a free-kick into his area late in the first half, allowing Cheikhou Kouyate to nod in the Hammers’ opening goal.

Things did not get any better for Cech in the second half when he was wrong-footed by Mauro Zarate’s strike from outside the box.

The veteran stopper admitted it “was not in the script” on his Gunners debut but Wenger confirmed he was not laying any blame on Cech for what happened.

“I haven’t spoken to Cech,” he told reporters. “The first goal was a defensive lapse – a collective lapse. The concentration maybe was not completely there on the set-piece, the organisation was not perfect.

“We were too far from our goal. We gave him too much distance to run into. We killed ourselves. With the experience we have in our team, it’s difficult to understand.”

Aside from Cech’s errors, Arsenal rarely threatened a breakthrough against a well-organised West Ham rearguard.

The game was reminiscent of home struggles against Sunderland and Swansea at the back-end of last season when Arsenal were unable to penetrate visiting defences set up to frustrate.

Wenger had very little to offer in defence of his team, admitting they seemed to be nervous at times.

“I can’t see many individual convincing performances today so it’s difficult to single one out. Our passing was not incisive enough. Today we have to look at ourselves. We were not good enough,” he added.

Arsenal face another London derby on Sunday when they go to Selhurst Park to face Crystal Palace. The Gunners will be under pressure to respond and are 1.75 to win the game.