Jan 17
Match Report: Hull City 1-3 Arsenal
Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal looked for revenge as they took on Hull City at the KC Stadium.
With Manchester United, Chelsea and Aston Villa all winning earlier today, victory at Hull was essential for a Gunners team that had lost to the same opponents at the Emirates Stadium earlier in the season.
Could there be a different result this time round?
Hull City Starting XI
Myhill
Doyle – Turner – Ricketts – Kilbane
Mendy – Ashbee – France – Halmosi
Geovanni
Cousin
Arsenal Starting XI
Almunia
Sagna – Toure – Djourou – Clichy
Eboue – Denilson – Diaby – Nasri
Adebayor – van Persie
First Half
Arsenal’s short passes and delicate trickery forged few openings in the first 20 minutes with new signing Kevin Kilbane marshalling the Hull defence well.
Robin van Persie came up trumps with a magnificent set piece.
The Dutchman’s vicious free-kick was tipped brilliantly onto the bar by the fingertips of Boaz Myhill and only a lunging tackle by Bernard Mendy on Johan Djourou denied the opener.
But only a few seconds later and the Premier League’s weakest defence – conceding 39 goals this season before this match – had crumbled.
Van Persie’s corner was floated in from the left and found the lurking Adebayor who looped in a header over the stranded Nathan Doyle to notch only his third in nine games.
Goal: Emmanuel Adebayor (30)
The confidence seemed to drain from the Tigers’ players and Arsenal, stroking the ball around with ease, should have grabbed another soon after with Emmanuel Eboue shooting disappointingly wide.
Second Half
Adebayor almost doubled the lead five minutes into the second half but it was the impressive Myhill who saved his side again with a strong parry.
Manucho – Hull’s on-loan signing from Manchester United – was introduced to spice things up front and was immediately in the thick of the action after replacing Peter Halmosi.
The Angolan striker was clattered by Djourou on the six-yard box as both leapt for a header but the screams from the Hull bench for a penalty went unanswered.
It was against the run of play that Hull grabbed an unlikely equaliser and it came from the man who scored the winner at the Emirates four months ago.
With Gael Clichy dithering on the right, Mendy was given all the time in the world to stroke in for Cousin to head in powerfully from three yards past the out-stretched hands of Manuel Almunia.
Goal: Daniel Cousin (65)
As the rain and wind tore across the stadium, the Arsenal players became hesitant again and Hull stepped up the work-rate, sensing a famous victory was within their grasp.
Bendtner, one day after celebrating his 21st birthday, almost grabbed a goal just minutes after coming on, smashing the ball at Myhill after turning Kilbane inside out.
With nine minutes to go the spoils were Arsenal’s. Van Persie poked the ball through to Nasri on the left who calmly slotted the ball home inside the left post.
Goal: Samir Nasri (81)
Bendtner wrapped up the game with four minutes to go, finishing off Van Persie’s square ball from close range.
Goal: Nicklas Bendtner (86)
Extracts taken from the BBC Football site.
When’s that Arshavin exclusive gonna go up?
Skysports says RvP is the best striker bar non in the EPL. I will have to say he is pretty close to that, what a form he is in. If he keeps that up for the next 2 weeks he will be favorite to win the EPL player of the month.
Our best game for a very long time, although it went pretty close. I thought the team was very aggressive and moved a lot more than usual. Clichy, Toure and Almunia were poor though. CLichy had his worst game since joining Arsenal, Almunia was shaky and Toure is just playing very badly. He didn’t do anything costly today but on couple of occasions he came running too aggressively and didn’t position himself well. Him, Djourou and Clichy all went rather close to conceding penalties.
Sagna was solid as was Denilson, very good game by the Brazilian. Eboue was much better than usual although almost none of his passes went the right way. He is such a limited player but did a lot of things well though. Diaby was terrrible in the first half but put in some stunning tackles in the second half. A poor outing though. Nasri did well and is coming along very well. You can tell how much more comfortable he is playing in the center and if we buy Arshavin, I’m sure Samir will play centrally till Cesc gets back.
Adebayor was pretty good and RvP is just amazing. Three assists, hit the bar and created almost all of our dangerous moves. And finally. I think Nick changed the game. To all you haters out there: He will show you how talented he is. 3 goals in 3 games now and a big part in the second goal today. I think he didn’t miss a pass and he brought directness into the team. I wouldn’t mind him and Vela starting up front against Cardiff.
Even i think that Bendtner is doing better now. he’s a very good player thats why Wenger still have him. wats good with him is that he doesn’t hesitate to shoot. And he’s out to prove something.