QPR 1 - 2 ArsenalQPR: Charlie Austin 82
Arsenal: Olivier Giroud 64, Alexis Sanchez 69
High tension and high stakes coursed through this meeting of top four chasers and relegation battlers. In a game littered with chances, the difference boiled down to finishing, and Arsenal were ruthless enough on the two occasions needed to secure the points needed to keep them ahead of the pack in the hunt for Champions League re-qualification.
Rob Green was beaten twice at his near post. After Olivier Giroud steered in the opener, Alexis Sánchez rediscovered his taste for goals after a seven-game drought. That put to bed the theory that Sánchez and Mesut Özil, Arsenal’s two most luxurious buys, don’t particularly mix. It was a quirk of recent matches that Sanchez, so prolific in the first half of the season, had lost his eye for goal since the return of the languid assists-man.
All QPR’s solid work – and there was plenty of it early on, and a desperate search for an equaliser once Charlie Austin halved Arsenal’s lead – came to nothing. After Aston Villa’s win they remain stuck in the relegation zone.
QPR attacked their predicament – and Arsenal – head on. The gameplan from the start, to harass and press their opponents and shoot on sight whenever a sniff of an opportunity presented itself, gave them obvious encouragement.
The momentum kept building with every tackle from the steel in midfield in the shape of Karl Henry and the returning Sandro, with every heartfelt chasing run from Bobby Zamora, every speculative shot unleashed by Charlie Austin.
QPR pressed diligently and enthusiastically and Arsenal duly struggled to get into any kind of stride. It was typical of the tone of the early play that Zamora was spurred by the urge to chase a ball that was never going to be his – but his efforts did hurry David Ospina into a rushed clearance hacked out for a home throw. The Loftus Road crowd roared in appreciation.
When QPR got the game going Darnell Furlong whipped in cross that Ospina had to move sharply to deal with.
Zamora, who urged and cajoled his team-mates when he was not running at defenders, spelled trouble for Arsenal’s new defensive partnership of Per Mertesacker and Gabriel Paulista. It was perhaps a silver lining to the cloud of an injury to their Brazilian that Laurent Koscielny came on try to exert a bit more Premier League experience to the bothered back line. Zamora displayed yet more experienced hold-up play to tee up Austin, whose thumping drive was beaten away by Ospina.
Matt Phillips was the next to have a pop. No matter the angle was wide and the distance significant, he hooked in a venomous effort that again tested Ospina’s concentration. Austin fizzed another narrowly wide, accompanied by oohs cascading around the ground. He produces such power on his sudden efforts and shows such bloody-minded determination to send the ball hurtling goalwards. The home support came up with a ditty suggesting the opposing target man, Olivier Giroud, was just a poor Charlie Austin.
There was only one direction of pressure in a positive opening for QPR. The only frustration for Chris Ramsey was that they were unable to make it count while they dominated both possession and the chance count.
Arsenal strained. They struggled for rhythm, for fluency. They were not exactly short of technique on the pitch, with Sánchez, Özil, Santi Cazorla and Tomas Rosicky all starting, but they could not click during an unimpressive first half. It was only when Cazorla, who was stationed deeper alongside Francis Coquelin in the heart of midfield, ambled forward that Arsenal were able to craft a chance of note. The Spaniard’s volley was parried by Green.
Chastened, perhaps, by some words at half-time, Arsenal began with far more energy after the break, with the evergreen Rosicky at the heart of it. One dazzling run, a firm volley saved by Green, epitomised how Arsenal bucked up their ideas.
Back drove QPR, however. Koscielny’s value was underlined by an important block to halt Austin and then Phillips cracked in another shot from outside the box.
The breakthrough for Arsenal came from a counterattack. Özil and Sánchez carried the move forwards and when Kieran Gibbs joined in from left-back his dink was turned in by Giroud.
Boldened, they searched for more. Sánchez twice had fine chances in quick succession and at the third attempt he drove into the box and deceived Green with a quick shot at the near post.
Özil came close to adding to the scoreline, striking a post but the balance of the game took a turn with the next intervention as Austin finally found his range to swivel and shoot past Ospina. They could find no more.
Guardian
