Arsenal v Man City could be any result, any score.
But that game’s not till Sunday.
When Arsenal lose, its all about what Spurs and Chelsea do.
At QPR, Arsenal assumed they’d win and got hustled out of it and deservedly beaten.
Two bad mistakes by Vermaelen, two goals conceded.
Adel Taraabt scored his first Premier League goal of QPR’s 38-game relegation fight.
After 21 consecutive games and 63 shots without scoring.
The goals came in 22 and 37 and 66.
Taraabt is enigmatic, to put it mildly, a forward who looks odd, runs oddly, plays in spurts if he plays at all, impresses one moment, annoys the next.
Here he raced from right to left to nick the ball in front of Vermaelen, as Koscielny had to mark Zamora, who was out on the left. So Taraabt did his party piece and scored.
He did what he did six times in the first half when I was there for the Fulham game. On that day he got the ball, shuffled sharply and shot just wide or tamely to the keeper. He did that six or seven times in the first half hour.
But here Taraabt cruised past the unbalanced Vermaelen, zoomed through the D and hit the ball right footed, so that his shot dipped and bounced just inside the post for 1-0.
The crowd went wild because Taraabt scored loads of goals like that to get them promoted last season and win the Football League Player of the Year Award.
A measured move found Van Persie and he jabbed it through to Walcott to hit first time. When the ball came back off the post, Walcott, without having to move, hit it first time again to equalise.
Two clean strikes, one goal.
After that boost, you’d hope that Arsenal would start to play but they never really did.
Second half, one thunderous shot by RVP was tipped over by the advancing Paddy Kenny. A Gibbs header had sailed just wide when he jumped well for Sagna’s cross.
QPR’s winner came when Vermaelen slipped on the left flank and the ball popped off his head to Jamie Mackie, who set up Samba Diakite for a sidefoot shot from 13 yards. The Mali midfielder was completely unmarked.
Shambolic, really. Quite pathetic.
My friend Pat phoned on Saturday night :
“Sean Derry was man of the match and Robin Van Persie was marked out of the game by Clint Hill. Joey Barton came back – and only gave it away once! Makie was brilliant again and laid on the winner, Gibbs always had two men against him on that side. We had eleven committed players. Taraabt has turned himself around and worked hard and even passes the ball now !
“One of the cleanest games I’ve seen, apart from two high kicks. Two of our guys were kicked in the head but the Arsenal players didn’t get yellow cards. Our goal wasn’t threatened at all, Paddy Kenny only made once save. Wenger didn’t seem to know what to do, he brought on three subs at once.
“The fans were very down before the game, we didn’t expect to win. Ray Wilkins popped into the pub afterwards to see us, so that was nice. We hadn’t seen Ray for ages. And later on Stan Bowles popped in. So it was a really good day – we beat Arsenal and saw two of our heroes in the Crown & Sceptre.”
As Mrs Drogba looks for schools in Shanghai, Torres scored his first league goal for six months and Chelsea won 4-2 at Aston Villa.
So stuttering Chelsea had scored four goals away from home while Arsenal scored one.
But here’s the good news: Arsenal are still third with a five-point lead over Chelsea.
Adebayor, like Walcott, is trying to prove me wrong.
Ade headed goals two and three in a 3-1 win over Swansea.
That was Tottenham’s first win in six league games and lifted them to fourth on 58 points, level with Arsenal but having scored one goal less.
Manchester United are 15 points above North London with a game in hand.
They play at Blackburn tonight.
Most of us reckon United will win and take a five-point lead over City, who drew 3-3 against Sunderland after being 3-1 down.
April has started and the end of this endless football season is just round the corner.
The last game will come soon. But not soon enough for me.
I’m pooped as well as bored, as you can probably tell.
Finding it hard to raise my game.
My enthusiasm comes in spurts..sometimes.