Arsenal Beat Hull To Stay in Premiership Title Race

Yesterday's game turned out to be a game that could make the difference between Arsenal winning the league and another season of being also rans. We managed to snatch a win from the jaws of a draw and with it gain our fifth league win in a row and keep our title dreams alive.

With Chelsea eventually running out 4-1 winners against West Ham earlier in the day it was vital that Arsenal kept up the pressure on them and "Manure" who are playing Fulham today.

In my pre match prediction I forgot to include Arshavin in my predicted line up but otherwise I got it more or less right. I did think Eboue and Silvestre would play at the back but luckily enough both Sagna and Campbell overcame their injuries to start which meant Eboue played wide right instead of Walcott and Silvestre did what he is best at - warming the bench.

I was also pretty sure that Hull would try to rough us up and their persistent fouling in the first half in particular was an absolute disgrace. It seemed that every time an Arsenal player went past a Hull player he was pulled back, dragged down or tripped.

As usual, of course, we all knew that the first player booked would be an Arsenal one and so it turned out to be. I am utterly convinced their Phil Brown told his players to stop Arsenal players going past them at any cost and anyone who believes we are not targeted just needs to watch the first half of that match.

First thing's first though and upon arrival at the supporters club I was told that due to a "technical problem" we wouldn't be able to see the first 10 minutes of the game but that was a slight miscalculation and we actually didn't tune in until almost 20 minutes were gone.

Most of us had already got texts to tell us that Arshavin had put Arsenal 1-0 up in the 14th minute and that was a lot better than we had anticipated as Arsenal scored relatively early in a game for the second time in a row. It wasn't until halftime that we managed to see the goal when it was shown again. Our only consolation for those first 20 minutes was the beers that seemed to flow quicker than usual.

With our lead in place we settled down to watch the rest of the game but unfortunately that lead didn't last too long. A ball flicked over our defence fell to a Dutch man with a very long name and Campbell made a clumsy challenge to give away a penalty. The penalty was very well dispatched by Bullard and the sides were level again at 1-1 after 28 minutes.

He was offside when the ball was played and the linesman was perfectly in line to see it but somehow he managed to miss it. We got a decision like that in our favour on Tuesday night so I suppose it supports the theory that these things even themselves out in a season. 

At half time Kevin  Keegan said that Campbell should have been sent off but it just shows how little he knows about the game or the rules of the game. The player was not in control of the ball when Campbell collided with him as the ball was on the back of his head at the time.

The reason for that was, of course, that he was already on his way down before any contact was made and he was looking for the penalty. Campbell did however receive a yellow card for the challenge.

As Arsenal looked to regain the initiative Hull's tactic's took a turn for the nastier side as first of all Dawson was booked for a very bad "challenge" on Denilson that could easily have been a red card and as the referee was sorting that out the fourth official brought his attention to what appeared to be hand bags between Bendtner and Boateng.

Both players were booked but when we saw the incident again it was obvious that Boateng had raised his hand to Bendtner's face twice while in my opinion Bendtner appeared to do very little in response. If I'm wrong about Bendtner please feel free to tell me but I don't think so.

When I saw the footage this morning I realised that Boateng had actually intentionally stuck his finger in Bendtner's eye and he should definitely have been sent off. His stay on the pitch didn't last much longer anyway as just before half time he received his second yellow card of the game for what was certainly a straight red card offence again.

He went in knee high on Sagna and got nowhere near the ball and we are very lucky that he didn't do serious damage to Sagna. As Sagna received treatment and Boateng walked off the Hull fans sang "Same old Arsenal, always cheating" which just shows their supporters are at the same idiotic level as their players.

Half time came and went and still Arsenal couldn't find the form they had before the first goal. Arsenal made a few more chances in the game but the best ones fell to Arshavin who invariably mis-kicked them and it looked  like a 1-1 draw was all we would get.

Walcott came on for Eboue although I thought Sagna was the man who should have gone off to give us more attacking options against ten players. Walcott seemed to give us more impetus going forward but still the elusive winning goal wouldn't come. He did also seem to take the wrong option too often or not look up before crossing the ball at times but I thought he had a very positive effect on the team.

As the board went up to show six minutes of injury time we had a little bit of renewed hope that we could snatch a winner. The reason we had so much injury time was that a Hull player got hurt in a tackle with Campbell where Campbell clearly won the ball but it's debatable whether he used too much force or not. I thought it was 50/50 and both players were committed but Campbell was just stronger but I am an Arsenal fan.

Anyway a few minutes into that added time Denilson tried a speculative effort from outside the box in hope of finding a winner and when it swerved a little the keeper pushed it straight back into the middle of the penalty area.

The first player to react was Bendtner and I was sure he would blast it home but he didn't connect fully and the ball bounced over the hand of the diving keeper to nestle in the net. To say I was ecstatic is probably an understatement as I thought we had blown our chances and the two dropped points could prove to be crucial in the run in for the league.

It's been a very busy day so far and I will probably deal with any fallout or post match comments tomorrow as I have a lot to do still but I was delighted to get the scoreline correct for the second time in three matches. I only missed out by 1 goal as well last week so my predictions are improving at last. That's it for today.

Here's the highlights from yesterday.

LINK 

See you tomorrow.