Gunning the Tigers...

Arsenal visited Hull City over Saturday night, looking to keep their title challenge alive. Hull are also called Tigers by extremely generous fans - however, the only thing about Hull City that comes close to any tigerish-ness is the colour of their jerseys

Given the problems Hull has had, and the little run Arsenal seem to be putting together, it promised to be an extremely joyous end to a day that began at 4.30 am for me with a trip for a round of weekend golf in Malaysia, followed by “Alice in Wonderland” in 3D and a quick pizza dinner (no, not at Modesto’s).

Nasri reprised his creative play-making role in the centre, with Eboue and Arshavin supporting Bendtner. Campbell also seemed to have recovered from his mid-week exertions and slotted in the defence, thankfully keeping Silvestre on the bench. And since Song was serving his 2-match ban, in came Denilson in the holding role.

Arsenal started brightly enough, and the passing and the movement were evident early in the game. It didn’t take long for the quality to show, and within fifteen minutes, Arsenal were a goal up, thanks to some lovely work by the little Russian. The two lumbering Hull defenders thought they had closed the space, but Arshavin was small enough to slip between the big boys and score. It was superb stuff from him. Looking at the replays, the desire and his awareness were apparent – he was looking at the ball, the defence were looking at each other. One-nil to the Arsenal.

From there, it was pretty much one-way traffic, and Arsenal were completely overrunning the home team. At that point, the referee decided that the 25000 people who turned up had paid good money to watch a football match, it would be a shame to have them go home after seeing a training session. Consequently, he decided that a match is what they would get, and gave two shocking decisions within seconds.

First, Venegoor of Hesselink was played on-side when he was clearly not. And then, the referee decided that the same VoH was fouled and awarded a penalty, from which Hull duly scored. If that wasn’t bad enough, the referee even missed a comical attempt by Boateng, captain of Hull, to turn the match into an adult show. First, he tried to strip Bendtner of his shorts, and if that wasn’t enough, proceeded to shove his fingers up the Dane’s nose. How Boateng got only a yellow, and not a red card is beyond me. And of course, for allowing himself to be victimised, in true Taliban fashion, the referee booked Bendtner as well.

Back to the penalty decision itself, what was interesting were the circumstances of the situation. Sure, the referee could legitimately claim there was contact on VoH by Campbell. However, what he patently missed was that it was actually VoH who threw himself at Campbell, struck a tree that passes for Campbell’s body and bounced off it. Completely abysmal refereeing.

Anyway, the crowd scented full value for money and egged the home team on. The noise and the atmosphere got too much for Boateng again – his adrenalin shot through the roof, and his leg through Sagna’s knee. Second yellow, and the captain was off.

Now, one would have expected that Hull would take one of their strikers off, and replace him with someone in mid-field. But, trying to live up to their moniker of “tiger”, they persisted with both strikers. Courageous choice, but I think Phil Brown missed a couple of coaching tricks here. First, in my view, he should have kept Altidore as the lone striker, and brought on a winger replacing VoH. Second, Hull didn’t switch to playing on the counter or play the Bolton/Stoke/Blackburn-style long balls . If Altidore was up front, and Hull hoicked a few long balls, Arsenal might have had some trouble.

But they didn’t. And after absorbing some of the pressure, Arsenal duly ratcheted up the attacks. Walcott was on, and so was Eduardo. These two introductions were absolutely spot-on. While Walcott’s introduction was expected as he brought pace and direct attacking menace, in my mind bringing Eduardo on was a great decision. He has the creativity in the box, plays those one-twos and keeps the siege on within the penalty area.

The Hull goal was under pressure but time was running out for the Gunners. Actually it did run out, and we were few minutes into added time, when Denilson suddenly realised he was Brazilian, and he was not in a samba parade. Better late than never, I say. The man shot viciously at the Hull goal, and the only thing the keeper could do was to parry it. The first man to react was Bendtner, who gratefully stroked the ball into the net and gave Arsenal the 3 points. Honestly, I thought Eduardo would have reacted first, but I am not complaining.

And with that, Arsenal are still in the title race.

Looking back at the game, there were few other notable points that I thought are worth bringing up.

First, the injury to Hull defender Zayatte, who was upended by Campbell and had to be substituted. Well, its going to be interesting to read reactions to this one. Many pundits and so-called “experts” in the English media are going to say Arsenal is hypocritical, and the tackle on Zayatte was nothing short of attempted murder. However, to me it’s the media who is being hypocritical here, and no points for guessing why I say that.

Next, Bendtner. The man has really improved in the last few games. Sure, he missed chances aplenty against Burnley last weekend. However, what you cannot deny is his ability to be at the right place at the right time. That was demonstrated amply in the three games this week, and none better than the goal he scored today, as that is exactly what Drogba did earlier in the day for Chelsea. While he is no Drogba yet, a few more games, a little more composure and some experience, and I really believe he can be a very good goal scorer for Arsenal. He has oodles of confidence, but needs experience to know what to do, and do that often enough.

And lastly, Denilson. The man just doesn’t cut as a holding mid-fielder. The number of times Hull City players simply trampled him and moved on and not a single fould being given was not a joke. Surely Eastmond can’t do worse.

Anyway, I’ll let the anti-Arsenal hacks worry about such things, while I go savour the three points. The race is very close, but we need some luck. Actually what we need is for Chelsea and Manchester United to draw a few games, especially the one they play against each other.

Keep the faith…