It was vitally important that Arsenal held on to beat QPR at the Emirates on Boxing day, there is no doubt about that. After playing like puddings and throwing away two points with some awful defending against the 10 men of Liverpool and with tough away games at West Ham and Southampton to follow, the Gunners could not afford to let the points slip with our own 10 man performance.
Wojciech Szczesny and Mathieu Flamini were bullish about the rearguard action after the game, with the keeper praising the performance and spirit of the Arsenal players and especially the defence. He certainly seems happy, even though Arsenal did concede a penalty and were under serious pressure for the last quarter of an hour, claiming that he did not feel that QPR got close to getting that damaging second goal.
Szczesny told Arsenal Player, “I thought under pressure in the last 10 or 15 minutes we defended really well.
“It was always going to be very difficult when they scored the first goal, we knew we were in for a very hard 15 or so minutes. I thought we did well, they didn’t really create anything, so that was a positive.
“I thought we played well. We put ourselves under pressure with a sending off but I thought we should have finished the game much earlier than that.
“We suffered a little bit at the end because they put two players up front and put us under pressure. It was tough but in the end it was a very important three points.
“It’s huge for us. We know we have a massive game in two days again, so we’re going to have to recover very quickly. We have to be at our best again because West Ham have been brilliant recently. It’s going to be a difficult game but I’m hoping for three points.”
Flamini’s thoughts were of a similar nature, as an Arsenal.com report shows. The French midfielder felt that there was a huge improvement from the showing against Liverpool at Anfield and he reckons that the character and performance should see Arsenal in good stead and allow the players to go to West Ham in a much better frame of mind.
Flamini said, “It was a great performance, especially when it was difficult after being 10 against 11. We showed great character on the pitch and that was important.
“I thought it [penalty] was a bit hard on us but we will forgive him… it’s Christmas.
“The team showed great character and we knew we had to defend better after Liverpool. It was a good game for us and now we have to recover because we play again in less than 24 hours.
“We knew that our manager is a legend and he proved it once again today.”
But I think that another way of looking at it is that we should have cruised to victory over the struggling Londoners. Surely a four or five goal thumping and a clean sheet would have been a lot better for our self-belief. The fact that we nearly threw the win away after completely dominating QPR for most of the game seems to me to be a real reason for concern. What do you guys think?
Brittle little clowns, less talk more action.
Don’t here Chelsea or Man C talking, cause they get the job done.
Attitude with 10 men was brilliant..
Same attitude with 11 for the rest of the season may see us top 4??
Shame it has to come to 10 men or a goal down to provoke a reaction!!!!
Yes
Arsenal were all over QPR.
If Sanchez converts that penalty
Arsenal score 4-5.
Arsenal scored a second with ten men.
Walcott Ramsey Ozil all due back soon.
Two quality defenders in “early” January I hope
West Ham A
Jan.
Southampton A
Hull (FA cup) H
Stoke H
Man City A
3 tough (A) games.
Must win the homes.
Some massively important 6 pointers there. Winning all of them would do us a world of good, though we will need Ramsey & Kos back for City if we are to stand a chance.
No. They probably lost confidence from spending 15 minutes hanging on against the league’s away day whipping boys.
Realistically no.
We hung on for dear life against the worst away team in Europe. We had to put on a CB and DM to shut up shop vs QPR at home. I’m glad we have West Ham tomorrow, means this game won’t get so much attention.
Thank god, because it doesn’t paint a very good picture of us, 10 men or otherwise.
United vs Tottenham, Chelsea vs Southampton, Tottenham vs Chelsea, Swansea vs Liverpool, Arsenal vs West Ham, Arsenal vs Southampton. All in the next few days. The teams around us will all drop points, we just have to win our games to capitalise on it and we’ll be vying for third in no time.
Yes! Lets now focus our attention on west ham tomorrow, and getting another hard fought 3 points! We can go 4th tomorrow if results go our way! Lets not slip up gunners! Coyg!
Arsenal must sign world class DM and CB, overcome injury crisis, then we can talk about confidence ….
We have to make January the month in which we turn our season around. A strong show in the second half of the season and we can still pip United to third and have a shout at retaining the FA Cup. We should make the Champions League quarter finals, hopefully we can even reach the semifinals. All in all, this season isn’t over yet, we can still do something.
B4 the redcard it was like we were playing with 10men anyway ..so Giroud absence made no difference
I`ve just taken two papillon pups onboard, they`re ten weeks old. Like Arsenal they`re a sheer delight to watch dashing around with a stick, or something, in their mouths and damned hard to catch. Also, like Arsenal, they`re going nowhere but, with a little discipline and patience, all that will change. Under new management that could also be the case at Emirates.
Mixed feelings really, 3 points=confidence, the manner of the scraped win does not. We need Ox/Walcott back to five the side some fresh impetus. We also seem to be lacking the midfield creator, (arteta, wilshire or ramsey). Rosicky anyone? Worried that Sakko is going to tear Per a new one tomorrow after being left out of the last game. Sakko, valencia, Song etc could make trouble for us come kick off! Coyg. Its surely going to help west ham that they only have 1 injured player too, (Chelsea have 0, how do they do it?!).