Hull City 1-2 Arsenal. Unprintable

I was utterly distraught when Bentner scored and undeserved winner for Arsenal in injury time, my reaction was not necessarily the appropriate one for a 41 year old with his seven-year-old son in tow. But that’s life.

I can’t remember being so disappointed by sport. Normally I’m pretty sanguine. Well, given my teams are Hull FC, City and Yorkshire you’d have to be in order to maintain any level of sanity.

City were magnificent, Arsenal not impressive and once again we rattled the Gunners who seem to lose all sense of reason and proportion when they play us. Quality players like Nasri become petulant spoilt brats, and Arshavin had been taking lessons in finishing from Bentner’s last Premier League outing against Burnley.

Boateng told the press to expect a physical game. Why not just go into the refs room prior to kick off and tell him you are going to kick the shit out of these Nancy Boys? Daft lad. Talk about making yourself a marked man!  I haven’t seen the replays, but his second yellow looked harsh, the foot was raised but it didn’t look that bad. But off he went. Down to ten men before half time against one of the best passing teams in Europe. Gulp.

But the Captain’s dismissal seemed to galvanise us as, despite equalising from a hotly disputed penalty (I thought HessleRoad looked offside when he took the ball into the area only to be bundled over by the woeful and frankly embarrassing Sol Campbell) we sat back and let Arsenal play.

But the second half was a master class in passion V questionable application from a talented yet brittle Arsenal. They are fine when they are playing more skilful teams, but simply don’t have the stomach for a sleeves rolled up battle, and Wenger can whine all he like but Man Utd are more then capable of mixing it when they need to and that’s why they, and not Arsenal will be the challengers to Chelsea for the Title.

Myhill chose the worst possible time to drop a clanger and we are rooted in the bottom three, effectively four points from safety. Nevertheless we are showing enough at home to stay up, and two more wins plus some draws maybe enough as the bottom of the Premier League is pretty poor, quality wise.

PB needs to play 442 away from home and be positive in his selections. When we take the attack to the opposition we are more than a match for most teams, especially now Bullard is back on the scene.

Liam Cooper was tremendous when he replaced the injured Zayette. He and Cairney provide reasons to be cheerful about the long-term future if we stay up. It’s the end of the road for Fagan and Garcia who have been atrocious of late.

Hull City: Myhill, Mendy, Zayatte, Mouyokolo, Dawson, Fagan, Boateng, Bullard, Marney, Vennegoor of Hesselink, Altidore.
Subs: Duke, Barmby, Garcia, Kilbane, Zaki, Cooper, Olofinjana.