Post Match Analysis: Arsenal Fail To Make Chance Count against Hull

Well. That was a frustrating game. Held at home by Hull, and for a while it looked like Hull would take all 3 points away from the Emirates and you wouldn’t have been able to call it undeserving. They came to the emirates with the FA cup final defeat still fresh in their minds and they really brought the game to Arsenal, shutting us down completely. However it really should never be allowed to come to that in an Arsenal Hull game, so what were the major 3 things we can take away from the game?

1. Sanchez is our best player

And not just by a little bit, by a long long way. He was energetic, intelligent on the ball, willing to take a shot at goal and relentless in his attempts to get Arsenal back into the game after both goals. Yes Welbeck scored the second but Sanchez put it on a plate for him, and the rest of the midfield seemed to think if they kept the ball in front of the Hull back line for long enough they would roll over and let Arsenal waltz the ball into the net. Not so.

I know we’ve suffered some injuries but the names on the team-sheet were still heavily in favour of Arsenal, and I’m now a little annoyed that Wilshere looks like a wonderful holding midfielder for England but seems to not know where his team-mates are when playing for Arsenal. I’m looking forward to Walcott coming back because at least we’ll have two willing runners, and Oxlade-Chamberlain looked completely out of his depth for some reason.

I do also think we need to improve our ability in the air, because apart from Giroud I can’t remember an Arsenal player looking threatening in the air during open play, despite the fact we get into wide positions so often and have wonderful passers of the ball in the squad. Surely we should be more of a threat in the air? No?

2. Our defence is poor

My God it is poor. We have no cover at all and if someone could let Mertesacker know that he is still playing for Arsenal in the Premier League that’s be great. The amount of space that he allowed Hernandez to head Hull ahead was a little embarrassing, and Huddlestone was given the freedom of the Emirates to put the cross in. We need to learn to press as a team because at the moment Sanchez is going crazy on his own and everyone else looks bored with life.

We need to sign more players that give a bit of body to the defence, and actually stand up to the opposing side. Flamini was almost certainly fouled for Diame’s goal but the fact is he couldn’t stand the heat of the challenge. It’s not good enough. Which brings me on to the next point…

3. We need to be more resilient

When things are going our way we are a wonderful team to watch, but as soon as it goes a bit wrong we throw our toys out the pram and complain that they’re not playing the right type of football. There is no right way to play football. We play differently to Barcelona, who play differently to Dortmund, who play differently to Chelsea etc. Get on with it. We play the teams we come up against and we have to be able to stand physical pressure. This all comes back to Allardyce’s comments and how Wenger has become blinkered to all other styles of play that did bring him success.

So there were three things we learnt from the Hull game, what else do we need to change?

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