- Arsenal v Hull: Arsenal near the bottom of the table – for injuries.
- Arsenal v Hull: all you wish to know about Hull City and then some
By Tony Attwood
If it is Arsenal it must be a crisis. And lo and behold we have one: Rice is playing too many games. But Arteta says he is not concerned. Now of course we know what will happen.
Few players get through a season without some sort of injury, and it is likely that Declan Rice will have some new injury at some time. And then out will come the papers saying “The manager was warned but wouldn’t listen.” And just to complete the series we’ll do a piece asking why, if these journos know so much about football, they don’t get a job as a football manager, where the salary is much better than that in football journalism. (The answer, in case you haven’t guessed is that they don’t know much about football).
Of Declan Rice, Mikel Arteta actually said that the club is “looking after him more than any other season”.
Much of the fuss comes because Declan Rice pulled out of the England squad two months ago. And he has been showing “signs of fatigue” of late according to the media,. but instead of suggesting that England could give him a rest, the media suggest Arsenal, the organisation that pays Rice is wages, should give him a rest. Rice didn’t play in the league cup match, of course, so he did get rest there, but is playing in Arsenal’s other games.
And there is a financial point here. If you buy a season ticket at Arsenal you expect to be able to watch the best Arsenal players – not see a bunch of reserves turn out because the first teams have been injured on what is laughably called international “duty”. For let us consider what this “duty” is. The players (like the rest of us who are resident in the UK) pay large amounts of money to the government each year in taxation and rates, and now they are supposed to avoid working for the club that pays their wages!
If the media suggested this for any other part of the English population there would be howls of derision. How about journalists not writing so much because they might injure their hands and then not be able to complete bank transfers to pay their taxes?
But anyway, as Arteta pointed out, “Which is the only player in this squad that for two games in the Carabao Cup has been left out of the squad? At home with two days off. That’s my concern.”
In fact England are drawing on Arsenal players as we are told they used to in Chapman’s day. Ben White is now back in the group, with Ezri Konsa, Myles Lewis-Skelly and Eberechi Eze. And what compensation do Arsenal get when they play and/or injured?
But lest we worry too much let us remember that Arsenal have won more games than anyone other team this season. They also have the best defence, and have gained the most points. So it can’t all be bad, and this weekend we can focus on that.
There is of course a tiny amount of recognition about Arsenal’s current progress in the media with the statement in the Telegraph that Gyokeres is “the creator and executioner to see nervous Arsenal past Slavia Prague.” And I am sure there is something about Arsenal in the Mail too, but I couldn’t find it.
So looking back into history it appears that Arsenal have played Hull 26 times, won 18, drawn five and lost three. Now those draws and defeats might seem a trifle surprising, but I should point out that Arsenal first played Hull in 1908. In fact they played twice in the 1907/8 season as the clubs drew in the FA Cup in Plumstead and then Hull beat Woolwich Arsenal 4-1 in the reply.
The two sides started playing each other regularly in the league in 1913 after the move to Highbury. The first game was a goalless draw, but after that Arsenal started winning.
However as Bob Dylan said, “Things have changed” and in the most recent run of 14 home and away games which began on 17 January 2009, Arsenal have won 12 and two have been drawn. Also rather promising is the fact that in two of the last three games between the clubs Arsenal have scored four. Once in a 0-4 win at Hull in 2016 in the FA Cup and then the following September 1-4 away in the league.
The most recent game against Hull was not quite so jolly however as Arsenal only won 2-0, at home on 11 February in 2017.
