Arsene Wenger said he was humiliated by the crushing 8-2 defeat at Premier League rivals Manchester United.

Wayne Rooney scored the sixth hat-trick of his Old Trafford career as United went back to the top of the table and left Wenger facing a growing crisis.

“Of course you feel humiliated when you concede eight goals,” said the Arsenal boss. “It was a terrible day.”

Sir Alex Ferguson said: “He has been a big adversary and will continue to be when he gets his big players back.”

Wenger insists it is too early to judge whether his summer transfer policy has been flawed following the departures of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri and the lack of midfield replacements.

But he is now battling to sign reinforcements before the transfer window closes at 2300 BST
on Wednesday.

 Wenger, who insists he will not quit, expects to complete the signing of Monaco’s South Korean striker Park Chu-Young before then.

He also wants to sign a central defender and a midfielder, and Arsenal are likely to renew their interest in Bolton centre-half Gary Cahill, having already had one bid turned down.

Wenger, who became Arsenal manager in October 1996, added: “We have to find the right players and if we do we will sign them. We have the money and if we find players to strengthen the team we will do it. If we don’t do it, it is because we haven’t found them.

“I try to make the right decisions and the two players we sold [Fabregas and Nasri], I brought them to the club. In 15 years I have brought some good players.

“You know me, so you should give me some more time to see if I have got it completely wrong.”

Elsewhere Manchester City beat Tottenham Hotspur 5-1 away from home and Chelsea managed to overcome newboys Norwich 3-1 at Stamford Bridge.

Liverpool beat Bolton by the same scoreline at Anfield with goals from Jordan Henderson and Charlie Adam, their first for the Reds, plus one from Martin Skrtel.

Manager Kenny Dalglish said after the victory: ““We’re delighted. I thought we played really well, passed and moved and I think we thoroughly deserved the victory. Everybody who came along to watch will have been very well entertained by the performance of the players.

“It’s always nice to score your first goal at Anfield – and even nicer when you come off with a victory as well. Both Jordan and Charlie will get a lot of satisfaction from their goals, but they’ll get more satisfaction from the victory.”

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