Gunners make the routine difficult

A St Stephen’s Day derby on an arctic winter’s evening was just what the doctor ordered to walk off some of the Christmas Day calories and to blow off the cobwebs of cosy domestic bliss.

Especially against a QPR side that are so accustomed to being trounced on the road that they turned out at our place as understandably timid fodder.

Yet in this Jekyll and Hyde campaign, you never know which incarnation of the Arsenal the opposition are going to encounter. Mercifully the horrifically lacklustre creature that we’d witnessed at Anfield last weekend had been replaced by the high-tempo entertainers that I’d been hoping for.