Another comfortable victory and another clean-sheet with a number of players rested - a good day at the office all round.
Arsène rotated more than a rotisserie chicken, making five changes to the side that beat Cardiff with Jenkinson, Monreal, Flamini, Rosicky and Bendtner all starting. Any concerns that the changes made would cause us to lose fluency lasted less than two minutes as once again Arsenal came flying out of the blocks.
A superb ball from Aaron Ramsey found Carl Jenkinson near the touch line; his whipped cross was excellent and Bendtner headed powerfully down into the bottom corner. The goal obviously meant a lot to him and it immediately vindicated Arsène's selection choices. It also gave the crowd no time to get on Bendtner's back; a large section of Arsenal fans feel the need to sigh, tut, tell the person next to them "I told you he was shit" or just yell abuse every single time he has a bad touch, misplaces a pass or misses a shot. Some of the people near me were talking as if it was a miracle that he had scored, as if he was a blind one-legged 98 year-old footballer. Tedious.
We thoroughly dominated the first 25 minutes, playing some great football with Cazorla, Ramsey and Özil in particular enjoying lots of possession in the final third. Hull seemed focused on damage limitation and managed to withhold the onslaught until half time. As the half time whistle blew, there was a sense that, given our domination, we had let the Tigers off a little easily.
I'd imagine Hull's gameplan for the second half was something like "let's just stay in this, keep it tight and maybe we can sneak an equaliser but for the sake of fuck lads lets not concede a goal at the beginning if the half again..." Then they conceded again at the beginning of the half. A quite beautiful Ronaldinhoesque no-look pass by Ramsey slipped in a grateful Mesut Özil who finished neatly and confidently at the near post.
The rest of the match made comfortable viewing. The greedy side of me would have loved another goal or two but our performance was once again extremely impressive and we've built up a level of consistency which will no doubt delight the manager. He can also be pleased with yet another clean sheet and the players that came into the side, particularly Monreal who I thought was excellent. We have a difficult run of fixtures coming up and rotating effectively is a tricky but essential challenge for Arsène. So far though, he's got it just right.
As the fans filtered out of the stadium, the news of Everton's late winner against United was greeted with a large cheer. Since we lost the battle between good and evil a few weeks ago, we have bounced back with three straight league wins and United have slipped up 3 times leaving them 12 points behind us. I'd be amazed if they came back to mount a title challenge, if I were a United fan (shudder) I would be worried about finishing outside the top 4. But happily I'm not, I'm a Gooner and I'm loving the football my team are playing and I think we are serious challengers this year.
Man of the Match: Aaron Ramsey
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