Nine Jimmy Rimmers – Arsenal and Football

There were moments yesterday when we were at are very best, but mostly we were poor and slow. QPR wanted this a lot more and the Arsenal team didn’t look ready for it.

We kept losing the ball in midfield, both through being robbed and misplacing passes. The two goals we conceded were both rather soft. Vermaelen is getting most of the stick today and he had an unusually poor game, but others have to take some blame too. On the first one, he got spun by Taarabt, but QPR had already sliced through our midfield with ease.

The second came when Vermaelen slipped on the edge of the box but it was scored by a midfield runner, Diakite, who ran through the middle of our half without anyone tracking him at all.

Walcott’s goal was good. He needed a second chance when his first effort rebounded off the post but he smashed it in with little time to react and get in position. We could easily have had another through Van Persie, after a good pass from Song, but the keeper did well and kept it out.

Apart from Vermaelen, Ramsey is getting a lot of stick. This is unfair. I don’t think wide on the left is where he wants to be or where he is any good. Personally I think he is someone who competes with Rosicky and Wilshere for a place rather than Gervinho or Oxlade-Chamberlain. For some reason Arsene Wenger sees him out wide like he used to do with Diaby a couple of seasons ago.

Anyway, the main problem was that Arsenal weren’t up for it. Unless Spurs thrash Swansea this afternoon Arsenal will still finish the weekend third. But unless Swansea pull off a big favour for us we’ve used up that comfort zone and made the three-way battle for third and fourth place a lot tighter again. And mext week we play Man City! Mind you, they had a bit of a mare too do let’s not slit our throats yet.

To read some Arsenal blogs, you would think we hadn’t won a game all year and were fighting relegation. Well obviously we’re not, but it was a dumb way to end a great run. Hopefully it’s just a kick up the bum that will shock us back on course.

Well Arsene started it I suppose, promising a busy summer!  Did I miss anyone out of the Sunday paper rumour fest?

The stuff in all this that is most likely for real is that a deal is there soon for Gervinho and a deal for Samba is being contemplated by Arsenal and Blackburn.  Blackburn’s Chairman reveals that Samba ‘has an ambition to play for Arsenal’ and that they might reluctantly have to go a long with it.

You can understand that reluctance when they’ve already lost Jones.  I mean, it would be like us losing Fabregas and Nasri in the same window wouldn’t it?

If these two deals (or a different central defender) do come through soon it will settle nerves around the place as a firm signal from Arsene Wenger that he really does intend more change than normal this summer.

I’m not going to write a deep analysis of how Eto’o and Barton could work well in the same team, though I suppose stranger things have happened.  Inside I’m torn between the prospect of having to think positively about Joey Barton and the images of Arsenal heads dropping against bottom-half opposition!  I’m going to lock that all away in a dark corner for now as 90% of this transfer stuff is rubbish anyway.

Perhaps the sane thing to do is ignore all the Sunday papers in June and follow the example of of Arsenal blog ‘A Cultured Left Foot’ – which today spurns transfer speculation for an appreciation of Anders Limpar.  For more recent fans, he was sort of Andrey Arshavin in an earlier life.  Anyway it’s well worth a look.

Great memories, that dreadful ‘rag-doll’ away strip.  That game against Coventry with Limpar’s hat-trick – even Perry Groves scored, but mind you the Coventry captain got Arsenal’s first with a bullet header past his own keeper!  Brian Moore (?) described it as one of Arsenal’s most spectacular goals of the season!