Robin van Persie scores again as Arsenal scrape past QPR

Robin van Persie possesses the selfish instinct of the goalscorer and it would have needled him to have fallen short of Alan Shearer's 16-year-old record for Premier League goals in a calender year. Arsenal's red-hot Dutchman had the opportunities. "He will not tell you but, certainly, he will be kicking himself," the Arsenal manager, Arsène Wenger, said.

The consolation prize, however, was not bad. It was Van Persie's goal that settled this match and gave his team the points that, with Chelsea slipping up, lifted them into fourth place. Nobody could have foreseen that in the dark days of the early season, not even Wenger. After the defeat at Blackburn Rovers on 17 September, they languished in 16th.

Van Persie closed out 2011 with 35 league goals from 36 appearances, one short of Shearer's haul from the Blackburn glory days. It is a stupendous return. Consider the fact that Shearer needed 42 matches for his goals. And as if to highlight that Van Persie is, above all, a team man, he ran to the bench to celebrate his winner.

At full-time, Van Persie bowed to the crowd, which included Thierry Henry, the returning hero, whose loan move from the New York Red Bulls requires a few more days to complete, meaning that he will not feature at Fulham on Monday. The supporters ought to have been prostrating themselves before Van Persie.

The only gripe was presented by Neil Warnock, the Queens Park Rangers manager, who highlighted how he felt Van Persie lived on the edge of the rules. "He does get away with murder," Warnock said. "Every long ball that comes down, he looks at the player, gets his arm up and fouls the centre-half but he does it in a way that they don't give it so it's obviously within the laws of the game. It's disappointing."

Warnock incorporated four attackers in his line-up and "tried to have a go". But if Rangers were never out of the contest, they never felt truly in it. Their poor form goes on – it is now one win in 10 – and Warnock admitted that he was looking forward to the January window.

Arsenal, who have loaned the midfielder Emmanuel Frimpong to Wolverhampton Wanderers for the rest of the season, had the bulk of the chances and Van Persie's goal had been advertised. He had the chances in the first half alone to set a new record, with three coming in the space of seven minutes.

The game had started slowly, with Andrey Arshavin's continuing travails making the neutrals wince and the home supporters groan, although he did not deserve to feel Adel Taarabt's elbow in his face on 20 minutes. Taarabt was fortunate to escape censure. Rangers went close when Shaun Wright-Phillips danced on to Taarabt's pass only for Wojciech Szczesny to block.

Joey Barton was booked for a late tackle on Mikel Arteta and Vermaelen was booked for a challenge on Wright-Phillips; one to be reappraised on a case of mistaken identity. It was not Vermaelen's day. The stand-in left-back limped off with a calf strain and deepened Wenger's worries in the position.

If there was no surprise about the identity of the deadlock-breaker, there was irony about its creation. Wright-Phillips had been one of Rangers' most lively players but he erred with a pass that went straight to Arshavin and the Russian threw off his shackles to roll the perfect ball for Van Persie.

The captain buried the chance with one swing of his left boot. Arsenal might have added to their lead through Aaron Ramsey and the substitute Gervinho but one was enough, if not entirely for Van Persie.

Source: David Hytner, The Guardian on 31 Dec 11