Thomas Vermaelen made errors that cost us the game in the end and when our offensive game is suffering then it can only lead to defeat. Vermaelen dived in at Adel Taarabt and the Moroccan skipped past him and curled past Szczesny for his first Premier League goal of the season. It is ok to dive in when you have Koscielny on the cover behind but when you are

Bang goes that three point safety cushion after a very disappointing performance and result at Loftus Road.

The home team wanted the game more and were more committed in the tackle but I am not convinced that was our biggest problem on the day or the reason for our defeat.

The ingredients for recent winning run was a combination of pressing, commitment, confidence and moving the ball quickly. Arsenal dominated possession for the most part owning 67% of the possession, when you have the ball so much, winning duels surely isn’t the main problem although that was certainly the case for Thomas Vermaelen.

Our issue from start to finish was the speed of which we moved the ball or to be more precise, lack of speed that the ball was moved. We were far too casual in possession, preferring to play the ball between the defence and midfield without cranking up the gears when venturing into Rangers territory.

Much is being made of the selection of Aaron Ramsey in a wider midfield position. The young Welshman has taken a lot of unfair criticism in my opinion.

Ramsey’s inclusion in the team is not to replicate what Gervinho or Chamberlain do, it is to reinforce our midfield giving us more of the ball and also giving us a better chance of dominating the midfield battle against a team that were likely to put their foot in.

It isn’t the first time that we have seen this tactic, replace Ramsey with Yossi Benayoun and we produced arguably our best performance of the season against Tottenham. Ramsey also played in the same position against Everton and we won the game where the likes of Manchester City, Tottenham and Chelsea all failed.

In the first 30 minutes at Goodison Park, Aaron Ramsey being in the starting 11 saw us play some of our best football of the season. We had cut apart Everton into pieces because of the approach of all of the players and not just that of a young midfielder. Yesterday it was a collective issue from back to front. The urgency that was displayed against Tottenham, in the first half hour at Everton and against AC Milan was missing and when our passing slows down, our game is nowhere near as potent.

Thomas Vermaelen made errors that cost us the game in the end and when our offensive game is suffering then it can only lead to defeat. Vermaelen dived in at Adel Taarabt and the Moroccan skipped past him and curled past Szczesny for his first Premier League goal of the season. It is ok to dive in when you have Koscielny on the cover behind but when you are square on with your central defensive partner then it is suicide and we were punished.

A rare Walcott and van Persie link up saw Walcott bend his low shot off the post and his rebound finish was calm and composed. I cannot remember any Walcott runs off the right into central attacking positions for the whole game, which is strange when you consider that Ramsey was brought in to make the center stronger, surely that would have given Walcott more licence to join the front.

At 1-1 Alex Song played an inch perfect through ball to Robin van Persie to burst through on goal and had his left footed shot saved. That was the turning point of the match. You would have put all your savings on the PL leading scorer to have buried that. While Robin is by far our best goal scorer at the club, the shot across the keeper isn’t perhaps his strongest choice of finish in the way that Theo Walcott can.

I am guessing that Arsene’s plan was then to keep competing with QPR and keep the scores level until late and then introduce players like Gervinho and Chamberlain to settle the game when legs were tired. If that was his plan then our vice captain put a spanner in the works when he slipped and allowed Jamie Mackie to skip past him, the attacker had time and space to pick out loan signing Diakité to side foot past Szczesny.

What was more disappointing than anything was the response to the goal. Our football was still stuck in slow motion and we still looked blunt for the rest of the game even with the substitutes. The Gervinho for Ramsey switch made no difference to our attacking game and that was my original point at the start of this article.

I think a better argument would be did we pay QPR too much respect with the bolstering of our midfield rather than having an extra attacking player rather than the performance of Aaron Ramsey. Against Everton it is understandable but QPR it just doesn’t seem like a Wenger thing to do and more a Benitez defensive move.

It is hugely frustrating losing a game like this when you consider Queens Park Rangers recent results and it just goes to show that if you are not on your game in every single aspect then you can lose to anyone at anytime regardless of your form.

All Gooners will be supporting Swansea City today but I wouldn’t hold my breath, if Tottenham ever needed an incentive to regain form then this will be it.

It is time for the players to roll up their sleeves and correct what went wrong yesterday. Next up is potentially our most difficult game of the run in so unless we are on point then we can forget about the three points. The players know what it takes to win games, they have showed that in the previous seven games. While doom is being spread around quicker than it takes Joey Barton to go down, let us not forget the fantastic run the team have been on and what they have given to gain that run.

It needs the experienced players who were not on their game to step up. Experienced players like van Persie and Vermaelen need to get the team to bounce back.

Lets hope this is a mini blip in what has been a fantastic run rather than the start of our demise.