The Gunners were riding sky-high and were faced against a side fighting for their Premier League lives. Arsene Wenger opted for his regular winning lot but he drafted Aaron Ramsey back into the squad in an unfamiliar left wing role.
Arsenal drew first blood when Robin van Persie played his free kick under the wall straight at the goalie Paddy Kenny. The QPR custodian scrambled the initial effort but smothered it at the second attempt.
A dominant spell from QPR followed as the host got on the end of many set pieces to no avail. However, the match opener arrived when a simple pass evaded Arsenal’s midfield and arrived on Adel Taarabt’s feet. The former Spud made a fool of Thomas Vermaelen before slotting his effort past Wojciech Szczesny.
Arsenal pegged QPR back when van Persie fashioned a chance for Theo Walcott in behind the host’s defense. The winger smashed his initial effort on the post but the ball rebounded back to Walcott and he slammed it home on his second attempt.
Late in the first half, Ramsey had an effort that went wide and that was it for the first 45 minutes. Van Persie threatened again in the second half after receiving another sublime through ball from Alex Song but Kenny was up to the challenge with a brilliant save.
In a somewhat mysterious circumstance, QPR regained the lead when Vermaelen hit the turf while marking Markie. The forward kept his composure to cut the ball back into the danger area and it was finished aplomb by Diakhite with Szczesny rooted to the spot.
Tomas Rosicky fired a shot that was easy pickings for Kenny. Wenger summoned Gervinho, the Ox and Chamakh but they made little or no impact on the proceedings.
Arsenal’s misery was almost compounded when Joey Barton was on the end of another cut back but Szczesny made a great save.
Szczesny (6.5) was highly unlucky to concede both goals.
Gibbs (6.5) put up a good shift.
Sagna (7.0) provided good support for his winger.
Vermaelen (4.5) put up his worst performance in an Arsenal jersey. He was at fault for both goals.
Koscielny (6.0) was a bit rusty.
Song (5.5), Arteta (5.5) and Rosicky (6.0) were very poor in midfield.
Walcott (6.5) scored a well-taken goal.
Ramsey (5.5) didn’t justify Wenger’s reason to field him ahead of Arsenal’s natural left wingers.
Van Persie (6.5) provided an assist for a teammate.
Before yesterday’s game, QPR was touted as the worst team in terms of throwing points away from winning positions while Arsenal was labeled as the comeback king of England. QPR threw away the lead, Arsenal couldn’t complete the comeback allowing the hosts to regain the lead again.
A blistering hot winning streak of seven games on the trot suffered an abrupt end courtesy of a bad day at the office.
As expected, Gooners went haywire on Twitter with causes, swears and what have you but the quote of the day was culled from the same social networking platform.
“@mj_afc: On Twitter, you are always one game away from disaster. Never ceases to amaze me. Chill out.”
Chill out Gooners, It was certainly one of those days.
Besides, we’ve seen worse.
Sayonara.
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