QPR 2 - 1 Arsenal: Not good enough, deserved defeat

My gut feeling that we would lose today ended up being well placed. It was a difficult feeling to explain, but I just felt that we were going to struggle against QPR and our run would come to an end.

The surprise before the game was that Aaron Ramsey would be starting ahead of Gervinho and Oxlade-Chamberlain, a ploy Wenger used in our last away game against Everton. The theory behind it is that with Ramsey playing in an inside left position, it helps Arsenal retrain possession in the opposition half and gives more space for Gibbs to overlap.

However, it seems that it doesn't help break down the opposition. Naturally Ramsey will come inside, and this leaves the playmakers with Walcott and van Perise as there only targets. That quickly becomes predictable and the opposition can defend it well by not allowing Walcott to get in behind and just letting us play in front of them.

It's a common method of defending against us that works all too well and we don't help ourselves by playing with little urgency and purpose.

QPR played with a simple, physical approach that worked. They got tight to the mdfielders quickly and Zamora gave Vermaelen and Koscielny a hard time with his strength. The Arsenal centre backs were too eager to try and nick the ball in front of him and ended just getting outmuscled almost every time. This also resulted in a number of free-kicks in dangerous areas and QPR looked threatening almost every time they got one.

This habit of trying to nick the ball in front of the player cost us dearly. Vermaelen tried to get in front of Taarabt, didn't get it, was turned all too easily and the Moroccan finished well.

The goal didn't seem to wake Arsenal up at all, as they continued to be pedestrian with the ball and play in front of QPR. The one time we did manage to get in behind we scored, although we were lucky that the ball ricoched into Walcott's path.

In the second half things didn't really change. Arsenal kept the ball almost entirely in the QPR half but created next to nothing. One chance we did create was when Song played in van Persie, but he took his shot too early. At 2-1, you would've felt reasonably confident that Arsenal would see the game out, although QPR had troubled us.

Then they scored again. Vermaelen, up against Mackie, slipped and let the forward in behind. He played it back and Diakite fired in a shot the keeper had no chance with. QPR capitalised on two errors by Vermaelen, who had been unsettled all game.

Afterwards Arsenal did virtually nothing new with the ball. Even with Gervinho and Chamberlain both on, we stll didn't create anything and we deservedly lost the game 2-1.

Wake up call?
If there's any bright side to this it's the fact that the defeat might be something of a wake up call for Arsenal; that for every game, no matter who you are playing against, you must play with urgency. Even with seven wins behind you, you cannot just turn up thinking it'll be a stroll in the park, especially not against a team at the bottom of the table, scrapping for any points they can get.

Next week, we play against Man City, another team fighting for any points they can get in order to stay in the title race. Hopefully, Arsenal will have learned from this defeat and go into that game with a more focused attitude.

Still a long way to go to claim third
This defeat is also a reminder that third place is far from decided. If Spurs win tomorrow, they go level on points with us. Chelsea are five behind us now after their win and if Newcastle win, they'll be five behind us too. One or two bad results and that comfy looking five point lead suddenly disappears.

Player Ratings
Wojciech Szczesny - 6. Made one good save, wasn't tested too much and had no chance with either goal.

Laurent Koscielny - 5. Struggled against Zamora didn't look his usual assertive self.

Thomas Vermaelen - 4. Awful performance. One of his worst performances in an Arsenal shirt.

Bacary Sagna - 6.

Kieran Gibbs -6.

Alex Song - 6

Mikel Arteta - 6.

Tomas Rosicky - 6

Aaron Ramsey - 6.

Theo Walcott - 6.

Robin van Persie - 5.

And to think Vermaelen was at fault for both goals. Least expected...

sad beginning for saturday

He always has a shit game against Zamora

I was quite happy we the way we played

we tried

but Ramsey can just fvck off, sheep shagger

We controlled the midfield as expected, and 2 ridiculous mistakes by Vermaelen against the run of play cost us the game. This is easily the worst game I've seen from him.

The starting Ramsey experiment on the left side was an absolute fail and Gervinho or OX should have got the nod.

The lack of pace in the game was always against our advantage, and we simply didn't play at a high enough tempo.

And jay you were right, the Mike Dean curse does continue

gunnerlistick wrote:He always has a shit game against Zamora

Roasted on the first one, slipped on the second one. But we can forgive him because he's saved us numerous times...But still terrible game for him

Amar wrote:We controlled the midfield as expected, and 2 ridiculous mistakes by Vermaelen against the run of play cost us the game. This is easily one of the worst games I've seen from him.

The starting Ramsey experiment on the left side was an absolute fail and Gervinho or OX should have got the nod.

The lack of pace in the game was always against our advantage, and we simply didn't play at a high enough tempo.

And jay you were right, the Mike Dean curse does continue

wenger must see something in ramsey that we don't

he has been $hit all season why put him at a place that he would just fvck up

Amar wrote:We controlled the midfield as expected, and 2 ridiculous mistakes by Vermaelen against the run of play cost us the game. This is easily one of the worst games I've seen from him.

The starting Ramsey experiment on the left side was an absolute fail and Gervinho or OX should have got the nod.

The lack of pace in the game was always against our advantage, and we simply didn't play at a high enough tempo.

And jay you were right, the Mike Dean curse does continue

don't get why ramsey went wing instead of gerv/ox

Its simple . we were outplayed

Verm was all over the place today

Ramsey was hes typical shyte self

and wengers 80+ minute subs were pointless . 80 + mins, REALLY

didnt catch too much of the game, but i had a dream last night that the we lost 3-1. i guess i was close....


im hearing ramsey was awful as usual as well. did he start on the left again? please say no

aleumdance wrote:

Amar wrote:We controlled the midfield as expected, and 2 ridiculous mistakes by Vermaelen against the run of play cost us the game. This is easily one of the worst games I've seen from him.

The starting Ramsey experiment on the left side was an absolute fail and Gervinho or OX should have got the nod.

The lack of pace in the game was always against our advantage, and we simply didn't play at a high enough tempo.

And jay you were right, the Mike Dean curse does continue

wenger must see something in ramsey that we don't

he has been $hit all season why put him at a place that he would just fvck up

We said the same thing about song tbh...

The Verminator wrote:

aleumdance wrote:

Amar wrote:We controlled the midfield as expected, and 2 ridiculous mistakes by Vermaelen against the run of play cost us the game. This is easily one of the worst games I've seen from him.

The starting Ramsey experiment on the left side was an absolute fail and Gervinho or OX should have got the nod.

The lack of pace in the game was always against our advantage, and we simply didn't play at a high enough tempo.

And jay you were right, the Mike Dean curse does continue

wenger must see something in ramsey that we don't

he has been $hit all season why put him at a place that he would just fvck up

We said the same thing about song tbh...

yeah but Song did not start as a young player doing unnecessary stuff

rambo started well, but this season something is telling him that his middle name is Ozil

Song, Arteta and Ramsey were the main culprits they were bossed off the ball and put the defence under a tonne of pressure. Fouling around the box giving away too many set pieces. Attacking we messed around too much didn't put in enough goals and RVP probably should of scored with him 1v1 opportunity although was a fine save.

Song was 5x worse than Ramsey when he was playing CB as a young player. He was as bad as Silvestre.

When we had the ball, we played with no urgency and whe we lost it we din't win the 50-50's. Wenger should have bough OX on earlier on to inject a bit of pace.
Ramsey is not shit, Chamack, Dean-nilson and that are shit, Wenger shouldn't play him in a forward position or not play him when he is not needed. He exposes his flaws when he plays him

gunnerlistick wrote:When we had the ball, we played with no urgency and whe we lost it we din't win the 50-50's. Wenger should have bough OX on earlier on to inject a bit of pace.
Ramsey is not shit, Chamack, Dean-nilson and that are shit, Wenger shouldn't play him in a forward position or not play him when he is not needed. He exposes his flaws when he plays him

Ramsey needs real classes on holding the ball and still going forward

aleumdance wrote:

gunnerlistick wrote:When we had the ball, we played with no urgency and whe we lost it we din't win the 50-50's. Wenger should have bough OX on earlier on to inject a bit of pace.
Ramsey is not shit, Chamack, Dean-nilson and that are shit, Wenger shouldn't play him in a forward position or not play him when he is not needed. He exposes his flaws when he plays him

Ramsey needs real classes on holding the ball and still going forward

He should watch Arteta, Arteta only takes two or 3 touches before releasing the ball. Ramsey on the other hand suffers from Britishness, he takes about 10 touches before releasing the ball

Blaming JUST on ramsey is silly. No one apart from walcott and koscielny played good.

Vermaelen with his shittest game of the season. Szczesny was at fault for the 2nd goal more than vermaelen was. Also he didnt even move for Diakite's goal wtf is with that ?

We didnt look like winning the game. It was a shit performance lacking desire and authority. Ramsey was crap and the subs were brought on TOO late.

Chamakh looked good, i must admit. better than both oxlade n gervinho. Won is 3 freekicks lol

we need to win next week against city

No one is blaming him, he was just one of the problems today. I know the entire team had a bad game, we played with no urgency, no fight. We looked like the Arsenal of old who were just interested in keeping the ball

Nothing is lost.. I didnt see much difference in the game today.. We had some lapses in defense and paid for it...
Just one question.. Why are we playing a CM in left wing when we have wingers.. And both are right foot players with a very poor left foot..
And i have seen Rosicky being played in left wing last season too and failing.. And how long will we see Ramsey and Walcott making the same mistakes ?

Now city game is must win
typical defeat to relegation team
key to take a lead
if not
then they can stay organised behind the ball and as thousand times mentioned in this thread Ramsey usedid negative to us
pitch what can i say..........
everyone can have bad game verm directly won us 5 points recently

Shocking performance. A whole week off to recover from Villa, no travelling required, yet we play like that. Horrendous.

Starting Ramsey, and on the left = epic fail.

Chamaberlain on for 9 mins = epic fail.

Chamakh?

Vermaelen against Zamora my key battle? Oh dear.

Van Persie - needs a rest.

Wenger - "It was a difficult game, QPR defended well. We had an apparent superiority. Our performance wasn't good enough."

"I wouldn't like to single out any players. Many players were not at their best today. Our defensive display was poor."

"We must realise today wasn't good enough, and come back to our recent performances."

Honest by wenger