Hello and how are you?
Saturday the 7th of November sees our next PL clash, this time hosting our one-time FA Cup finals rivals from the East Riding of Yorkshire, Hull City. KO is at 3.00pm local time, and weather is mostly cloudy with temps at 10° (feels like 12°) and 5 % chance of rain.
As we are bedazzled by the autumnal hues, and the world still grapples to find pluralistic means of living and Chuang Tzu dreams of being a butterfly or the butterfly dreams of being him, us Arsenal fans put our attention on the last of our PL game before the next injury-inducing international break, this one against Hull City Tigers.
I’m sure we feel a certain confidence going into this match having broken the 14-yr Anfield hoodoo and chalked up a (fairly) comfortable win against the Slavs in the CL. Unless you’re a bit of a long beard and still carry around the old Arsenal cloud of negativity that makes you think we might slip up on a Tiger-striped banana skin.
Having lost to Hull in 2008, we have since clocked up a fourteen-match unbeaten run against them, although we’ve not faced them since 2017 in the PL and in that last encounter, Alexis Sanchez bagged the goals. How time flies whether you’re having fun or not?
Today I think we can expect Hull to do the old 5-4-1 give it the old low block and try to frustrate any, erm, harmonious play we might have and grab a breakaway goal against the run of play. Hull haven’t won in eight, and let’s hope they extend that to nine.
Missing in action for the Gunners are Mr. Saka and The Red Max.
Caged for the Tigers are Crooks, Matazo, Targett, Gourna-Douath, Ansah, Gyabi, Hughes and Morita.
I knocked on Statto HQ’s front door and they didn’t answer so I climbed up and snuck through the dormer window into their bungalow and they were discussing modes of alienation and Marx’s dialectical materialism, but reluctantly handed over the stats that read thus: Arsenal FC (1st) 82% chance of v for victory. Hull City (11th) with a 5.7% outsiders’ chance of grabbing ze points.
Next up the gruelling international break, then, on the 21st of November, when the boat comes in, we sail up to Tyneside and Newcastle United, like.
Till then, may your horses be lucky! COYG!
Mills
Arsenal: Raya, Timber, Konsa, Gabriel, Calafiori, Rice, Guimaraes, Odegaard, Madueke, Tzolis, Havertz.
Subs: Arrizabalaga, White, Mosquera, Hincapie, Lewis-Skelly, Zubimendi, Merino, Eze, Gyokeres.
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was trying to think of an Arsenal – Hull City link and the only two I can come up with is that Terry Neill managed both clubs and John Hawley played for both clubs, by the way John Hawley’s wife is Caroline Hawley who is a regular presenter on the BBC’s Bargain Hunt.
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former Arsenal Academy player Brooke Norton-Cuffy is a sub for Hull today
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Arsenal U18’s beat their Sunderland counterparts 3-0 this morning in the PL Cup to progress to the knock out stages. Bernard, Nwaneri(pen) and Hamill with our goals
the lads are on a great run of form at the this time. 7 wins in a row now.
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Great again Mills,
Yeah another low block and actually it’s probably going to be a park the bus base line block. Just what we hate, and they are fastest breaking side in the league as well. They don’t fuck about passing but any opportunity to get in and early cross will be taken and that goes for shots outside the box as well. They love to foul as well and as the ref is new to the PL I can’t see him being very strict so it might be a very start stop game.
This is one of those games we have to score first and early if possible. It won’t bring them out but should settle us. This will be a difficult game but we have the tools to clip the tigers claws and take the final three points before the interlull.
We are going to need our wingers to stay wide today to maximise space and this a game we could of done with all four natural wingers fit but that’s how it goes. We might need to use Kai and Big Vic today and this is the sort of game the full backs have to sit high so the midfielders will have to cover the breaks.
We faced these problems before, we know how to do it, so gunners let’s do it COYG.
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cheers Ian, much appreciated! COYG!
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the U18 teams left in the PL Cup
Arsenal, Aston Villa, Burnley, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspurs, Wolverhampton Wanderers
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FT: Leeds 1-0 spurs
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Arteta says William Saliba will play for our U21’s tomorrow v Aston Villa
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VAR penalty check for shirt pull on Havertz
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Ref looks at it on the screen and its not given cos Havertz was offside, so why was he sent to the screen at all
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HT: Arsenal 0-0 Hull City
what a fecking borefest, Artetaball at its mind numbing level
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oh for a John Hawley right now
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Havertz off Gyokeres on
Rice off Merino on
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Tzolis off, Eze on
Calafiori off, Hincapie on
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Odegaarddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd makes it 1-0 to The Arsenal
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Bruno off, Zubimendi on
4 minutes of stoppage time to be played
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FT: Arsenal 1-0 Hull City
Odegaard with the all important goal,
we done enough without being at our best
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seems we should have had that penalty even though Havertz was offside, Michael Oliver on VAR got it right and the ref on review got it wrong and gave the offside precedence when it should not have
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FT: Nottingham Forest 3-1 Man City
means Arsenal are 6 points clear at the top of the table, Brighton can reduce that to 5 points if they beat Brentford tomorrow.
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Man City have lost 3 EPL games in a row
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Alot of people are saying this was like the Leeds game but actually they were entirely different. Leeds took the game to us and we’re better than us for over an hour. We scored against the run of play really and even then Leeds nearly equalised.
In this game Hull surrendered the territory unto the half way line, and let their back five push high up outside their area, squashing the space where football could be played.
This would of been ideal for Arsene’s sides who could play in short places and play through the lines.
Mikel’s side are not clever enough for this and the balls over the top were just lapped up by their keeper. We relied on Noni beating his man mostly.
We did however create chances but were just not clinical because had we taken those chances we could of easily scored four before we did score.
I’m not sure if Bruno and Martin occupy the same space but they don’t work well together and hamper eachothers game.
Myles and Victor are on better form and are better suited to the team at the moment and I was a little worried when I saw the team sheet and that’s how it proved.
I don’t think at any stage anyone thought we would lose this game but the draw was absolutely on.
Kai is a favourite, and Bruno is a player Mikel has been dreaming about for years and Merino and Zube are players Mikel is trying to keep happy past the winter window. I absolutely believe those are the reasons Myles and Victor are not starting at the moment.
The cluster fuck that VAR produced with pigmols most senior ref, gives more weight to my belief that Pigmol are trying to get the PL club executives to vote to remove it so they once again have total control. There is something very wrong with the way the PL has been officiated since it’s origin.
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Arsenal U21’s are currently playing Aston Villa U21’s, its live on Arsenal.com
Porter, Julienne, Saliba, Salmon (c), Washington, Ibrahim, Hashi, Dowman, Scanlon, Harriman-Annous, Tyjon
Subs;: Nygaard, Upson, Dixon, Ogunnaike, Murisa, Agustien, Mooney.
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villa take the lead
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Liverpool Women 1-2 Arsenal Women
Russo with both the Arsenal goals in a much needed win
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Hashi makes it 1-1 after good work by Julienne
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2-1, Harriman-Annous, after Dowman played a defence splitting pass to Washington, he crossed low for Harriman-Annous to fire home form six yards out
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as things stand man utd are bottom of the table
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Dowman makes it 4-1, earlier in the half Harriman-Annous got his second and our third goal
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4-2 now
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Mooney makes it 5-2 in stoppage time
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FT: Arsenal U21’s 5-2 Aston Villa U21’a
Hashi, Harriman-Annous x2, Dowman and Mooney with our goals.
A first win for the U21′ this season.
Saliba played the first 45 minutes.
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Brighton now up to 2nd, the five points behind Arsenal
Man Utd need a win to get out of the bottom 3 when they play Aston Villa today.
Chelsea now 11 points off AFC, and Spurs are a full 15 points off AFC.
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