QPR will win at The Emirates on Boxing Day if you believe in fate.

Twice in the last three decades when the number four appeared at the end of the year, it has been cock a Hoops in north London - everything else since the first league meeting in 1968 has been darkness.

Rangers won 2-0 in February 1984, and they took this game by the scruff of the neck after John Jensen scored the best goal of the game and broke his Gunners duck at the 98th attempt.

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If ever a goal changed a man’s career, it was the one from the Dane in the 1992 Euro Championships final that helped beat Germany for one of the game's big shocks.

It earned Jensen a lucrative move but this was still less than a ground-shaking Arsenal. Vince Bartam added to the season of good cheer in W12 when he got under a deep cross in the second half and found Andy Impey nipping in to guarantee the win.

Bartram was very much David Seaman’s understudy, and it showed. His 12 appearances were all in this season when George Graham’s side were still involved in all four competitions open to them.

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Bartam would eventually find a more solid foundation at Gillingham in third and second tier football, which was also the long-term fate of Adrian Clarke making his debut as a 75th minute sub for Alan Smith.

For Rangers, the teenage sensation that was Kevin Gallen swept the away team into a third-minute lead from Impey’s cross.

Jensen then put a bend on the ball that did justice to a longbow for the equaliser.

But then three Gunners shot themselves in the foot as they watched when Impey’s low cross evaded them all for sub Bradley Allen to poke home on 76 minutes with a game in the balance until then.

Leading the line: Kevin Gallen

Impey himself provided the coup de grace, and Ray Wilkins probably wondered what all the fuss was about when it came to managing a top flight team after he took the reins from Gerry Francis in November.

Rangers were to finish eighth, with Arsenal lagging four places further back as well as losing the European Cup Winners Cup final in the final second when a long looping 45-yarder from Nayim, caught Seaman on his heels, and won the trophy for Real Zaragoza.

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There again, little did Butch realise icon Les Ferdinand’s £6m sale in the summer to Newcastle would herald the beginning of the end of their Premier League berth for nearly 20 years.

Arsenal: Vince Bartram, Lee Dixon, Steve Bould, Martin Keown, Nigel Winterburn, Stefan Schwarz, Ray Parlour, John Jensen, Alan Smith (Adrian Clarke 75), Ian Wright, Kevin Campbell

QPR: Tony Roberts, David Bardsley, Alan McDonald, Danny Maddix, Clive Wilson, Steve Hodge, Michael Meaker, Simon Barker, Andy Impey, Les Ferdinand (Bradley Allen 47)

Att: 32,393