Seven days after the calamitous 8-0 defeat at Southampton - a reverse which the dubious goals panel has now ruled included three own goals - Poyet is looking for a positive response.

He said: "It's going to be great on Saturday. I would love to be playing on Saturday.

"It's the perfect game to go in there and put in the biggest effort you can put in on a football pitch and show that whatever happened, happened and that's it, and now we are moving on.

"I don't want reactions because that means you have done something bad. I prefer not to react but I do really trust the players, so I am really looking forward to the game. That's the main thing for me."

As to the prospect of facing Arsenal, he added: "I prefer it. Why? Because 25 per cent of the performance from last week and it's going to be a disaster. The improvement needs to be dramatic.

"I am calm now. It was a difficult weekend, like everybody knows, and Monday and Tuesday, we were still talking about the (Southampton) game. Then from Wednesday on, I tried to concentrate on Arsenal.

"I can forget about everything I have done before and do what I want here, pick the team that I want. It doesn't matter, I don't think anyone can really disagree.

"Without going crazy, of course, I am going to think in particular about this game, trying - which is difficult - to forget about what happened last weekend.

"It's a tough game because they have got a style that maybe doesn't go very well with us, and we need to make sure that we do something different to previous games."