Arsenal: Szczesny, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Monreal, Gibbs, Flamini, Wilshere, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Cazorla, Alexis, Welbeck
Subs: Martinez, Ajayi, Coquelin, Arteta, Rosicky, Ramsey, Campbell
—
Arsenal had Danny Welbeck to thank for saving a point as they came from behind to draw 2-2 with Hull at the Emirates this afternoon.
Injuries and suspension meant that the Gunners fielded an unfamiliar backline with Hector Bellerin making his first Premier League start at right back with Nacho Monreal pressed into action at centre-half in the absence of Laurent Koscielny.
Jack Wilshere had the home side’s first chance of the game, heading an Alexis cross wide in the 5th minute. Hull responded as Michael Dawson headed at Szczesny while moments later Danny Welbeck stung the palms of Steve Harper with a fizzing shot from inside the box. Harper was called into action again shortly afterwards, claiming a low Oxlade-Chamberlain cross after a cute Cazorla nutmeg pass set him free down in the inside right channel.
The Hull keeper had to be on his toes as Arsenal continued to press, and he made a fantastic save from Cazorla as the Spaniard’s drive from distance headed towards the top corner. The pressure was intense and it paid off as we took the lead in the 14th minute.
Mertesacker won the ball high up the pitch, Alexis got down the right, stepped inside one challenge, into the box and rifled a shot into the bottom corner from a tight angle. 1-0.
It was almost two a couple of moments later when Oxlade-Chamberlain saw a shot blocked, instead the vistitors got a controversial equaliser. Diame went storming at the heart of the Arsenal defence, but pulled Flamini back in the process. The referee ignored the foul, Diame continued and finished from close range to make it 1-1.
The goal seemed to take a bit of the zip out of Arsenal’s play but Cazorla saw a shot blocked and another tame effort saved by Harper. The number 19 had a go with a free kick from a similar position that he scored from at Wembley in May, but this time his effort hit the top of the wall and deflected away.
Hull were forced into a change a few minutes before half-time as goalkeeper Steve Harper suffered a shoulder injury. He was replaced by Eldin Jakupovic in the 43rd minute but the substitute had little to trouble him before the teams went in level at the break.
Remarkably, it took just 31 seconds for the deadlock to be broken in the second period, but it was Hull who got the goal. A cross from the right hand side found Mertesacker too static, and Hernandez thumped home a header from close range to make it 1-2.
Arsenal struggled to fashion any kind of response with Hull sitting deeper, and weren’t helped by a period of careless passing and dribbling the ball straight out of play. When they did create an opening, as Oxlade-Chamberlain did for Cazorla, the chance was wasted.
Arsene Wenger made his first change in the 62nd minute, bringing on Aaron Ramsey for Mathieu Flamini as he tried to get his team back in the game. Jack Wilshere made a daft tackle, picking up a booking and an injury, and was taken off for Joel Campbell in the 69th minute.
Still though, the Gunners failed to threaten. The forwards were busiest defending with both Welbeck and Cambpell forced into making important tackles, before Hull descended into pure time-wasting – and why wouldn’t they? If it was frustrating for us, it was entirely of our own making being behind to a team we should be beating.
The second half performance was little short of abysmal from an Arsenal point of view, and that their sub keeper made his first save in the 86th minute, tipping over an Alexis free kick tells you everything you need to know about how we played.
But with 6 minutes of injury time put on the board, Arsenal found a way through. Alexis twisted and turned on the edge of the box, found Welbeck in some space and he finished from close range to make it 2-2.
Cazorla then saw a shot blocked and the rebound fell to Joel Campbell but on his right foot he failed to trouble the keeper. In the final throes of injury time, more great work from the tireless Alexis saw him find Gibbs at the back post, but the left back was stretching and couldn’t quite get enough on it to force the ball home.
That was that, and while the late goal salvaged a point, let’s not be under any illusions that this was anything other than dire from Arsenal today.
Bittersweet.
Referee is a thundercunt.
Why can’t we buy Mo Diamé??
Because he’s not good enough for us. The red was an utter(rant with expletives that go against comment policy). Ugggggh. I’m just sitting here flapping my lips. Sanchez is quality. Shame the rest are playing like recovering alcoholics. Mertesackers error was soon disappointing. Thought him above those mistakes
Not red. Ref
Recovering alcoholics. I couldn’t have put it better!
Except for Sanchez who is sublime. The only real top player on the pitch…this warrior played with himself 20% of the time ffs. unbelievable.
…Played with himself…oh well, u know what I mean.
*sad smile
Because he’s not good enough for us.
Yes you are correct, we have Flaminni and Arteta, WClass players!
How can Diame be good enough, hes only a big for nothing physical specimen with 4 goals from MF this season, why would any good team want him, and cost less than 4 million?
Why is it that as a manager you get fined when you criticise the referee? Seriously, every employee in the world gets told when they do a bad job and there are consequences when they continually underperform? I genuinely want a reason that is logical, although since it’s the FA, I’m not too optimistic.
Well in this analogy the ref would have to be an arsenal employee, and it would happen privately even in that case. Didn’t realise managers actually got fined for criticising the ref tho, even with the respect campaign…
Because it might affect their thinking next time they referee an Arsenal match.
I believe that after the game each team gives a written report to the refs association with their view of the officiating. Obviously the association completely ignore it.
The FA believe that officials can’t ref a game if all the players don’t respect them and this is supposed to be a way of keeping them from public criticism but when the refs are as poor as they have been for the last few years, no one respects them in the first place…..
We can moan about the referee or the hull players wasting time or any of a long list of things. But ultimately , the blame lies with one man and that’s Arsene wenger , for a host of reasons. What was our gameplan today? Did anyone notice any? Offensively? Defensively? What did we as a team set out to do? What’s wengers reaction on the day? Keep a struggling ox on for 90 minutes when he’s clearly out of sorts just like he did with an injured ozil at Chelsea And we’re left celebrating a point at home against hull… Read more »
Why is it always either/or? “We can blame the ref, but it’s really our own fault.” Bullshit. We were terrible but we humming along until the Diame goal happened. If the ref gets that right, it doesn’t count, we’re still up 1-0 and we might go on to dismantle Hull.
We might also shit ourselves, but that no-call also had a huge fucking impact on the game. It’s a fucking goal for chrissakes. There are only a few of them every game. And our opponents were pretty much gifted one today.
mate, i ain’t defending the ref. he cost us, what i meant is that i don’t want wenger coming out &blaming the ref. it deflects the attention away from the problems at the club thats all
Fair enough, but I don’t think anyone is oblivious to the problems at the club.
Er, what? That goal shouldn’t have stood. If the ref had remembered to put on his contacts before the game, we would have won. Then we’d all be on here talking about how we won even though we played poorly. See how that changes everything drastically? In this case, it is the ref’s fault. We weren’t great, but we still deserved to win, and we were robbed.
regardless, we should be good enough to not let one bad decision ruin the game for us. yet another abysmal attacking performance, we just aren’t making chances. seems like our passing game and build up play don’t set shots up in the right areas. ultimately thats not down to the ref being shit (how many times have we had that complaint??), its down to us being even shiter.
exactly my point mate
haha you got your comment in a few seconds before me. fully agreed, all the feel-good factor from the fa cup win and early summer optimism has evaporated. hard to accept but the truth is we just aren’t very good at the moment.
Spot on, i don’t get why we keep having excuses. This team isn’t just up to it. We are yet to have a convincing performance this season and don’t even bring up injuries as an excuse. We’ve had the same excuses for the past 10 years.
I agree mate. This team is a group of talented individuals poorly managed.
This is football, goals like that get allowed sometimes. As a team we should be able to win that game even if something happens like that goal is allowed. Blaming that decision by the ref ignores the fact that right now this team is simply not playing well enough.
Waited 2 weeks for that shite
Exactly – two weeks later, but still the same story. Pretty much no creativity in front of goal and as per usual we were unable to defend headers or create a half decent chance from any of our dozen or so set pieces. Even taking in the account the most atrocious and inept refereeing I have seen in a long time, we just needed to create some better chances. Also Flamini has become a total liability – wayward passing and appealing for decisions instead of doing his job. Arsene really needs to take a hard look at todays performance and… Read more »
I’d rather he just buy a defence.
The plan in attack could be ‘ just give it to Sanchez’
This is not us just being homers, right? Seems every game 2-3 massive decisions go against us. That’s not to mention the serial kicking that most of our opponents are allowed to employ with near-immunity. Fucking sick of it. It’s bad enough that we’re our own worst enemy, but when the ref is our second biggest enemy, it tilts the playing field.
But like you said, if Wenger says anything, he gets fined. Fucking tired of it.
Shit… sorry. This should have been a reply to Mr Meeseeks in the thread above. Whatever. Point stands when we play like shit and we get shit decisions against us, I guess I should consider it a minor miracle that we get a point.
Why can’t he just give coquelin a game? Hard to imagine he can do worse than flamini right now.
Plan B? I really don’t think Wenger has that in his vocabulary, tactics is another word he may well be advised to learn. And then substitutions…. rotation….
#blameozil
Seriously cannot believe that game, Wenger has been found out so long ago and absolutely refuses to change. It is the same thing week after week, pass pass pass pass pass give it away at their box, counter attack and we are a goal behind and then the Arsenal onslought and we get a goal at the end to draw or scrape a win. We are in for the same thing until his contract runs out, but sure hey we are making money. Players are going to get tired of having such a good team and getting nowhere……..its the managers… Read more »
Agreed. Great players. Great stadium. Great fans. Great commercial deals.
Now find someone who can pull it all together in the modern age.
We just need a change. Sad but true.
Can’t agree on the part about the fans. I think we have pretty shit fans really. We picked up a lot of trophy hunters in the 1998-2004 period, and the result is the group of whingers we have now.
I watched the game and our fans were so quiet until the end, why?. We need to be a lot louder and give our team drive and impetus from the off , Dortmond fans do it why cant we? boo the other team and let them know where they are every time they get the ball, make that twelfth man really count, i bet it will make a difference to our players and the opposition.
LOL, it’s 2014. Trophy hunters, hunt for trophies. Something Arsenal hasn’t delivered in quite some time barring the miraculous comeback against world beaters Hull last spring. Fan bases grow, and fans from every time period are growing frustrated at our lack of cohesive play. Every club has trolls. Newcastle fans whine all the time too etc.
Praise be to Arsenal’s Fairy Godmother for showering us with said players, stadium, fans (I don’t agree) and commercial deals. All Hail Fairy Godmother!
The way we are playing now and have been all season so far, 4th would be a serious ‘Result’. Mid table tops….
Fuck 4-1-4-1.
when the other team has their 3rd choice keeper for the whole of the second half, you’d hope we would have a shot on target before the last 10 minutes.
That requires logic – something Arsene and Arsenal is not associated with ^^
I don’t get it, we did so well with the previous formation apart from in the big games last season. Why can’t we just be a little more defensive only in the big away games instead of giving these lower league teams too much respect?
very true. 4141 does nothing against a parked bus
This is a clash between to mid-table team, apparently.
*two… ahhh but you get it, right?
God bless Alexis Alexis
Blessed*
And Joel Campbell! He was superb after coming off the bench. On the basis of that performance I’d replace the Ox with Campbell for Anderlecht and Rosicky for Wilshere who looks crocked.
A catastrophe, simply put. I actually stopped watching at the 70th minute mark because I could tell exactly how the game was going to pan out and I didn’t really feel like watching same shit over again.
So poor, so predictable.
2 wins from our first 8 matches is simply not good enough
Shh, they might hear you and call you anti-arsenal
How bout 10 points from 8 matches? This rate will give us 47 at the end of the season.
Definitely safe from relegation, eh?
4-1-4-1 sucks donkey dick
Utterly dreadful… Team doesn’t look like they know what they are doing… No cohesiveness at all… And how are our corners still so fucking useless… It is beyond me. Like honestly though, do we even practise them? I mean for the love of Dennis they are shit… Yes the ref was crap but we were equally crap. We were quite lucky to draw to be honest… Not all gloom and doom though, Alexis again shinning when it mattered. Faded a bit in the second half but made that equaliser goal and nearly made us the finished. Probably signing if the… Read more »
I agree friend. This team just hasn’t gelled from an attacking sense. There are too many nippy players trying their luck (no cohesive plan) to break down well drilled defensive unit. My long concern about Arsenal has been set pieces. We concede too many and don’t score enough. The corners were shocking today. Don’t know if the team really practice these things. Some observations; Bellerin is no where near 1st team quality now. No wonder Wenger uses Chambers when available. The Ox is a lot of running but poor nous. Gives the ball away in dangerous positions causing serious concern… Read more »
That ref definitely left his head in the shine-o-ball-o for too long
Ref screwed us, but still….we just aren’t good enough
Great spirit!
Arsene is King,
Pathetic.
Leaving aside Alexis’ and Bellerin’s performances plus the first 15 minutes, this was utter crap!
Arsenal are like a very talented youth side playing against grown men
As far as I remember, last season this time – We had 1 loss , 7 wins and a draw. And now 2 wins , 5 draws and a loss. I don’t get it :/
Why cant we just win? Is it that difficult? We switched of after 30mins and woke up when it was already too late. …if we continue like this its going to be one hell of a season.
Compared to last season we still score our average 2 goals, but we concede more this season.
Defensive lapses? This is very “unusual” isn’t it?
Do you think Mr Wenger will do something about it?
No
Okay, now it’s time to worry. It’s going to be a long season at this rate.
Scrap for 4th again…
I can’t even bother to get upset about this. This is going to happen about 12 more times until January. And despite what Wenger said during the break about buying, I bet he buys zero defensive cover (either CBs or DMs).
Seen this movie too many times to think anything changes.
If you have no expectations then the disappointment is not difficult to deal with.
After Chelsea manhandled us like we were ragdolls my expectations vanished.
Top four? Dream on. This season is th end of our European road.
Southampton scored eight goals today. We need a breath of fresh air
Up The Asenal!
We did this to ourselves yet again.. Conceding 2 goals from 2 attempts and allowing the opposition to park the bus. Seriously, 3 cbs in their 6 yard box is always going to be tough to break down. Let alone the other 8 cunts I think we huffed and puffed but there was just nothing doing. Really worried about wilshere now too. I thought monreal and bellerin in particular were good. Campbell too, what does this kid have to do to get a look in. Fucking annoyed beyond words tho that’s the title gone already (if it wasn’t before). Scrap… Read more »
4th is optimistic, and I am not going to bet on it. In fact I guess 6 th / 7th, tops….
I’m so fed up with this shit, we should smash those bunch of cunt’s with or without a cunt ref that’s IT.
Another 2 points dropped another injury and another superb match by Cesc whom we dont need…
Title race over, now we’re fighting for the 4th spot with Utd and Pool.
I forgot to mention the only one showing REAL arsenal class today was Alexis.
Ref really did cost us the 2 points today… at the same time, the second goal we conceded was stupid. If we’re going to be challenging for the title we need to perform better for the whole 90 minutes and not the last 10.
Only deluded fans blame the Ref., every team suffers it during the season you get some for you and some against you, we need to manufacture better excuses, since 2004, against Southampton some were saying we played the reserves, i bet they will beat us in the league too with this pathetic first team.
Counting down the days until the end of Wenger’s contract. In the meantime I will be going through the motions of expecting nothing and being happy when we win the odd game.
I really did think it would be a turning point after the FA cup for Wenger. Now it looks like it should have been his swansong.
RESULT = BOLLOX We should be winning this game. REFEREE = SCUM Hulls first goal should not have been aloud. SANCHEZ = AMAZING He is on a completely different level to anybody in our team! I think we can all see now that this team is not good enough to win the league, when we pick up a few injuries. Wenger made a mistake not buying a DM and a CB. I wish he would stop being so stubborn and listen to the fans and nearly everybody with a bit of footballing knowledge. Its tough being an Arsenal fan this… Read more »
All the that time-wasting really spoils it for me. I thought there would be 8 or 10 minutes of extra time. It seems to me that our real problems are not at the back, but in the midfield and up front. We’ve shipped some goals, but I’ve never had that Silvester/Senderosesque where-the-fuck-did-all-our-defenders-go feeling; rather, our midfield allows ball carrier so much time. Per stuffed up for that second goal, but how much time was there for that cross?!
Speaking of time wasting – Arsenal have been wasting my time for the last 5 years…
Extremely fucking frustrating. Made me want to slam my head into a glass coffee table. We created absolutely fuck all. Especially of concern is the fact that we only seem to create shit when we go behind; when considering our form this season, 60,000 fans rioting is the only fucking thing spurring these players on to score goals and win. It’s all well and good chilling and ‘recycling possession’ at a slow-ass-fucking pace until some cunt stabs us in the balls and we go behind, forcing us to shit our pants and actually try to score. Oh well, fuck it.… Read more »
Well, that 2nd half certainly highlighted what we’re missing without Ozil. That was the most one dimensional shit I’ve seen in ages. We made a bunch of ex-Spurs players look fantastic. How is that even possible?
I think Campbell did well when he came on and Wilshere wasn’t bad, for me the chemistry up front needs to improve as we give the ball away way too many times when in possession and there’s too much uncertainty between the players when they get near the box.
Yep. Also, Alexis was good, so it’s not all terrible. Still, we should be able to do quite a bit better, even with our current injuries.
Doesn’t really hurt anymore. Used to watching this shit. But I get sick and tired of utterly shocking refereeing game after game.
Fuck me.
I’ve never seen us so disorganized. We were so incoherent that I felt like watching a match with 22 Gervinhos. And I’ve seen every match for 16 years!
This is no way to brooding young talented players, like Bellerin.
We lack ball winners in midfield.
Poor. VERY poor. A draw is not good enough, again. Manager definitely to blame now. We shouldn’t be playing a LB at centre-back with an U21 on the bench at this stage of the season. His stubborness is ridiculous. We were cheated slightly, the ref was poor, but make no mistake, this was a result of our own making. So disappointed. The title is gone for us; it’s a desperate chase for fourth now, and it’s October. Great. Jack being injured just adds to the bitter icing on the fucked-up cake. I suppose a couple of positives? Alexis was great.… Read more »
I miss Thierry and the guys.
Although I love his mentality, I just don’t think Flamini is good enough for the level we ought to be at to be honest. He gives the ball away too easily for a DM and although the goal today wasn’t his fault, I find that he has given away too many goals from a position where he has possession in his own half.
I disagree, the goal was Flamini’s fault, he’s 5’8″ and weights about 10 stone and just wasn’t strong enough and to think he was the biggest of our central midfielders!
This is just becoming too typical in our seasons to say we were unlucky. Just can’t believe we sit here after 8 games and we’ve already had to write our season off in the league. Fuck me we could do with vermaelen right about now, or even djourou. And that’s no disrespect to monreal out there because he got stuck in there. But when we’ve got 2 senior centre backs on our books only a matter of weeks ago and we let them go without replacing them? So that our second choice left back can possibly fill in there even… Read more »
Another shit day.
Half the points of Chelsea after 8 games. Wank.
I’ve said it for a while but I have been getting criticized everytime I mentioned it. It is nothing wrong with the attack it is just the defence playing like utter shit and individual misstakes leading to goals that shouldn’t go in. Danny Welbeck is pure class for the record, 8 appearances and 6 goals for us. Giroud scored like 23 goals on 50 matches for us last season. I hope Welbeck is gonna be our first choice striker, we played good offensively today, we were unlucky not to win the game but I personally hold defence responsibly for the… Read more »
It was all the referee’s fault.
We can still win the Premier League. All we have to do is to get to January and then bring in a couple of defenders.
I can see us snatching the title from Chelsea on the last game of the season.
i dont know if your being serious or sarcastic its 50/50 im leaning towards sarcastic because ‘it was ALL the referee’s fault’ is an inaccurate statement
Thumbs up for succesful use of the sarcastic font.
Good sense of humour mate
Ox was very poor.
It’s a long season, friends. Wenger will right the ship.
And save the 4th place 😀
No. No he won’t. He won’t change anything. That’s the trouble. If we get fourth it’s because we have some very very good players. If they were managed effectively then they could get us even higher.
It will always be the same. I have no faith in Wenger, I have no idea how anyone does other than sentiment as to why they do. Same shit every season. Wenger has no clue and anyone can see this. That 3 year contract is the worst thing we could have done, we’re stuck now with a horrible board who have no idea about football with a delusional manager who has no idea how to change things up. Stuck in the past with his repetitive boring training methods. Feel sorry for Alexis, just like Ozil was tricked by Wenger’s bullshit… Read more »
its like a team of denilsons and squillaci’s…….pass back, pass sideways, back again,stray pass, concede freak goal thats no longer freaky,a bit more of the same……wait till sanchez or welbeck save us, praise heart, rinse and repeat
For fucks sake!!!
Same result as FA Cup – papering over huge cracks. What’s the point of having a British core if they can’t even pass the ball to each other? Against Hull! This team is stale, the tactics are non existent, and the blame lies squarely on one person.
The number of English players is likely part of the problem. Having the half of the team composed of players from a mediocre footballing country with a reputation for producing players long on effort and short on technical skill does not sound like a recipe for success. Can you honestly say that either Wilshere or Chamberlain would play as much as they do if they were French?
I wouldn’t give AW transfer funds in January. His time is up & has been for sometime if we are honest withourselves. The passion, the power & the glory have passed; they belong to the past & will be forever treasured. It’s time to put new wine into new bottles .
Was the experience players bfg, flamini who made the crucial mistakes. Not bellini. and scZ. Thought he could have stood up bigger for first goal.
The front 5 please don’t be afraid to shoot against hull 3rd keeper.
4-1-4-1 isn’t the problem at all.. That first 15 minutes was electric
The fucking problem was and always is giving away cheap goals and allowing teams the opportunity to sit deep and defend for their lives.
What I wouldn’t give for a fit giroud and ozil in games like this tho.
What am I saying actually, even if fit we don’t do plan B.
We give away the cheap goals because of the formation
Exactly. The ‘2’ in 4-2-3-1 provides double the protection for the back four… than just the ‘1’ in 4-1-4-1.
Bring back fucking Tomas rosicky in the squad. At least the blokes got some heart so Alexis doesn’t have to feel so lonely out there
Uhm, he’s injured.
The same TRosicky that was crap, in fact dredful against Southampton or another?