An injury-time goal from Bendtner, thanks to the rebounce from the long shot from Denilson, managed to give us a well deserved victory and keep us in the title race.
Without key players RVP, Cesc, Gallas, Rosicky and Song, we started off brightly and managed to score from Arshavin’s moment of brilliance. However, Hull was awarded a penalty through Sol’s foul and managed to equalize. The penalty was an absolutely woeful decision from the referee, as the Hull player was clearly offside and there was minimum contact from Sol. For majority of the match, Hull City basically parked their bus in their own half trying to soak up our attack to clinch a draw. Frankly speaking, our winning goal caught me by surprise, as I didn’t really expect we would score in injury time, especially after all those frustrating attacking efforts.
Wenger started with a front three of Arshavin, Bendtner and Eboue. Arshavin and Eboue were lively and their dribblings caused much trouble to Hull’s defence. Bendtner was a bit wasteful upfront, but took his chance well scoring the winner. The substitutes Walcott added more pace in our attack, but Eduardo did not manage to impress, probably due to too little time. In midfield, Nasri was rather quiet while Denilson was very average in the defensive midfielder role. Diaby stayed deeper most of the time, perhaps to compensate for the lack of presence of Denilson.
Sagna and Clichy were solid in defence. Good to see Clichy getting back to form. Sol was still a rock in defence, while Vermaelen had put in yet another superb performance. Almunia, well, did not make any mistake but he didn’t have much to do either.
Overall, it was a hard-fought victory, because it was a tough away game right after our mid-week champions league match. Some of the players were obviously tired, and considering we were without a few key players, the lads had done quite well to keep up with the other title contenders.
