John Stones apologised to Manchester City's supporters following their humbling 5-1 defeat to Arsenal, acknowledging their performance in the last 15 minutes at the Emirates Stadium was "not acceptable".

Pep Guardiola's side were well beaten by the second-place Gunners, who moved within six points of Premier League leaders Liverpool.

Erling Haaland cancelled out Martin Odegaard's early effort, but Arsenal restored their lead when Thomas Partey's long-range effort deflected in off Stones.

Myles Lewis-Skelly made it 3-1 just after the hour mark, while Kai Havertz and Ethan Nwaneri added further gloss to the scoreline in the final quarter of an hour.

City suffered their heaviest defeat in a Premier League away game since losing 4-0 to Everton in January 2017, while they have now conceded four or more goals in a game for the fourth time this season, which is now the most times in a single campaign in Pep Guardiola's managerial career. 

And Stones conceded he and his team-mates fell way below their standards at the Emirates.

"It is difficult. I think all of us don't take losing well," he told Sky Sports. "It is hard to put into words straight after a game like that. Pride hurts. Sorry to the fans that have travelled to come and watch that.

"How we played in the last 30 minutes was not acceptable. Personally and collectively, it's not us. I am angry, upset personally and collectively about how the game finished.

"It is not nice to be involved in that when you know it's not your team in those situations. Credit to Arsenal, this is not an easy place to come to. For 65 minutes, we played some great football at times.

"We cannot let those situations get on top of us. We stopped doing the things we meant to."

Nevertheless, the City defender called for togetherness as they look to respond from their latest setback.

"A lot of different things that I have not figured out why we are not picking up results," he added. "The passion is there, the training and everyone has the right intention.

"We have not got to where we are without difficult times, and that is through everyone's career right now. We all have to stick together, that's a key point that we don't start to point fingers."

Guardiola concurred City let their standards drop later on and, with his side having fallen 2-1 behind to that Stones deflection, the head coach acknowledged his players must perform better in the face of adversity. 

"I regret the last 15-20 minutes, the rest was a really good game for our side," he told BBC. "It's difficult to understand when you see the result, but this is my feeling.

"It's happened all season. We are giving away too many things, we are aware this cannot happen, it happened.

"You have to overcome [it], you cannot lose control, it's 90-95 minutes. You cannot finish in the way we played, we could've scored three more, but the team has to be stable. It doesn't matter what happened."