The thing about being out of every cup competition is that you only have one game a week, but that’s ok with me.  With a squad more fragile than wafer-thin glass and Champions League for next season not yet guaranteed, I’m ok with only having one game a week.  Yep, I’m one of those infuriating creatures who, while I would *love* us to win a trophy, would not take the FA Cup or Carling Cup at the expense of Champions League football.  They are shiny, they give your fans something to boast about but at the end of the day the prize money is crap and it doesn’t help attract the world’s best players to your club.  Not that we ever try and sign the world’s best players. You know what I mean!

QPR today, and I made my feelings about Hughes and Barton pretty clear in yesterday’s blog which you can read here if you missed it.  It hasn’t escaped me how infinately quieter the comments section is when we are doing well, proving, once against, that the miserable Mary’s do indeed shout louder than those who choose to engage in a more optimistic lookout. A discussion for another day,

Speaking ahead of today’s game in his press conference yesterday, Wenger said “Finishing third is massive.  It matters to us to finish as high as possible. But we are far from Man City in fairness, about 12 points, and that’s very far in only eight games.  We’ve set a target more linked with our consistency. We feel we are in a fight with Tottenham, Chelsea, even Newcastle are still there. And third is better than fourth.”

Team news and Kos is back and I’m sure we all expect to see him slot straight back in to the back line and I doubt we will see many other changes give the run of form we are currently experiencing.  With QPR only managing one win in the last two months, all signs surely point to an Arsenal win however if we turn up with the attitude that the game is already won we could very well be heading home with nothing.  Such is this league that, on their day, anyone is capable of beating anyone else.  We just have to make sure that any hint of a handbrake is left as far away from Loftus Road as possible.

Finally, today marks the 11^th anniversary of the passing of David Rocastle.  Taken from this world at the ridiculously young age of 33, Rocky was a player loved by the fans during his time at Arsenal and that love seems only to have deepened since he was lost.  Younger fans will have heard the name but perhaps of no idea of the true impact his passing had on Arsenal fans.  This was a man who played in every game of Arsenal’s title winning season in 1989, a man described as a ‘gentleman’ by everyone who knew him long before his passing, not just platitudes served up after his death.  He was one of the truly great guys and the world has been a poorer place since he was taken.

We miss you.

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