QPR 2 Arsenal 1:IT WAS about time Adel Taarabt had cause for a whimsical celebration. His tally of shots without success had long since gone from comical to excruciating.
For an attacking midfielder who had dominated opposition defences in the Championship so thoroughly last season that he was voted the Football League’s best player, a run of 21 successive top- flight games and 63 shots without a goal could have proved noxious.
Yet the man from Fes in Morocco stayed keen and his reward on Saturday was sweet. With a cute turn and sweeping finish, he fleeced the Arsenal centre-back Thomas Vermaelen and beat the visiting goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny as if they, too, were lower league opponents. The moment was seared with promise. The impromptu celebration that followed amused all bar the referee.
“I turned around and it was like a comedy sketch – I thought Tommy Cooper was watching in the stadium,” said his team-mate, Shaun Derry, describing the moment a traditional red Fez was tossed from the stands and placed on Taarabt’s head. Hopefully we can look back in May and say that was a highlight.
“Adel was outstanding all afternoon. It was like one of last year’s performances from him. He’s got such raw ability that he absolutely took the league by storm last year. Maybe people have realised the type of player he is and doubled up on him.
“I’ve seen teams even triple up on him. And we’re at a higher standard this year so he’s had to find his feet. Hopefully this can give him confidence to score some vital goals for us between now and the end of the season.”
For Arsenal, chasing an eighth successive league win for the first time since the Invincibles of 2004, defeat emphasised their fickle nature these days. There was nothing in Saturday’s performance that could mollify the disappointment. Arsene Wenger’s men created little and were dictated to in all quarters: Robin van Persie has now gone three matches without a goal; Aaron Ramsey looked a lost lamb on the left and Vermaelen was feeble under pressure.
Mark Hughes’s side remain in the bottom three on goals scored but through this victory they have given their hopes of escaping relegation genuine feasibility. Any other team would balk at the run-in Rangers are facing – trips to Old Trafford, the Etihad Stadium and Stamford Bridge await – but then few other sides can boast victories over Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal in one season.
“It’s incredible when you consider the big teams who we’ve had to play here lately,” said Derry. “To get maximum points from Liverpool and Arsenal, you’d have said we were mad if we’d said we were going to get that. The pressure is off against the big clubs. But what I’d like us to do is take heart from this result, unlike when we beat Liverpool, we then went on to a performance at Sunderland and let ourselves down.”
Hughes would welcome another sharp display from Taarabt against Manchester United next weekend. “He’s been a free spirit in the past and played off the cuff, which is fine but at Premier League level you have to have discipline to your play,” said the manager.
“You can’t just flit in and flit out. He’s got an undoubted talent, he just needs to harness it but, if he listens to what we tell him, he’ll do well.”
Yet Taarabt’s artistry alone will not keep Rangers up. Should they escape the drop it will owe as much to their tenacity as a pack. With a midfield trio of Derry, Samba Diakite and Joey Barton, they stifled Arsenal’s flair and made the pitch at Loftus Road seem even smaller than it is. It was claustrophobic football – no space to move, no time to think.
Few played better than the returning skipper, Barton. Wenger admitted as much afterwards: “To win football games you have to win your fights first.”
Arsenal equalised only when Rangers momentarily backed off, although Theo Walcott needed two attempts after his first effort cannoned back off the post. Diakite deservedly restored Rangers’s lead midway through the second half when he lashed home after Jamie Mackie had outwitted Vermaelen on the flank.
Wenger has called for a calm response from his men. “We have to stay humble, put things into perspective and come back to basics. Manchester City on Sunday is a good opportunity to put things right.”
