Half-time report

It’s been a frustrating half to say the least. Hull City are really defending well and counter-attacking when they have a chance. But, we go into the dressing room with a number of chances which should have been taken.

In the 13th minute, Cesc was lucky to see the ball break to him but failed to hit the target from close range. Minutes later, Theo produced one of his typical runs but hesitated when in front of goal and he’s blocked by Hull’s defenders. The good spell continued with our boys pushing and pushing yet we could only produce a number of corners and a Denilson shot from long range going wide.

Walcott had a 2nd chance to open the scoring but after being luckily set-up by Eboue, his first touch let him down and the ball ended in the keeper’s safe hands. In the final minutes of the half we kept on pushing forward with Theo failing to make it 3rd time lucky when he hesitated again after a nice pass from Cesc. In the dying minutes of the half, Eboue had a very good shooting opportunity in the Hull City half but opted to pass it to Van Persie who didn’t expect the pass, like anyone else at the Emirates.

It seems as if we need to more creativity upfront. The movement is there; all the strikers are doing a lot of movement in empty spaces but we lack in creativity in front of goal. From what I’ve seen, I would gamble with Song for Denilson and Vela for Adebayor.

(At half time, no changes were made by Arsenal).


Arsenal

Almunia, Clichy, Gallas, Toure, Sagna, Walcott, Denilson, Fabregas, Eboue, Adebayor, Van Persie

Subs: Fabianski, Vela, Silvestre, Bendtner, Djourou, Ramsey, Song


Hull City

Myhill, Turner, Dawson, McShane, Ashbee, Zayatte, Boateng, Marney, King, Geovanni, Cousin

Subs: Hughes, Duke, Garcia, Mendy, Halmosi, Folan, Ricketts