The FA Cup final is on a roll. This was another engrossing game and enthralling occasion, and if there was no fairytale ending this time at least the less fancied side gave a great account of themselves. Arsenal's nine-year trophy drought is at an end while Hull's 110-year wait for major silverware goes on, though you would never have guessed watching a memorable final that there was such a disparity between the aspirations and achievements of the two sides.
Strictly speaking Arsène Wenger is no longer a specialist in failure, though his team still look a long way short of the Arsenal of old and it is debatable whether being pushed all the way by Wigan in the semi and now Hull in the final amounts to the sort of success that can be crowed about.
There are still questions that need to be answered, though as Yaya Sanogo tweeted before the game Arsenal have at least managed to win more than Chelsea, even if it was the 19th minute of extra time before Aaron Ramsey finally put the Gunners in front, applying a snappy first-time finish to Olivier Giroud's clever back-heel pass. Giroud had hit the bar from Ramsey's cross in the first period of extra time so Hull probably knew they had it coming. They had defended doggedly for much of the game to give themselves a chance of a penalty shoot out, but had no answer to the fresh legs Wenger was able to introduce for the final 15 minutes of extra time.
By astutely keeping back jackWilshere and Tomas Rosicky until the break in extra time, Wenger added some much-needed energy and invention and, though the pair were not directly involved in the winning goal, their arrival seemed to daunt their opponents. For all that, penalties might still have been needed had not Arsenal survived a last-gasp scare when Lukasz Fabianski came out of his area and failed to stop a run from Sone Aluka, whose shot from a narrow angle missed only by inches. With the same player bringing a save from Fabianski right at the death the drama at the end was intense.
Two and a half hours earlier the game had got off to the brightest of starts, with Hull taking the lead from virtually their first attack. Ahmed Elmohamady won a corner on the right, Stephen Quinn hit it long to pick out Tom Huddlestone loitering just outside the area for a volley and, though the execution was imperfect and the shot was missing the target, James Chester managed a back-heel deflection on the way through to leave Fabianski wrong-footed.
If that was encouraging for Steve Bruce's side, the Tigers were in dreamland four minutes later when Hull doubled their lead. This time Fabianski was not quite so blameless. He should have dealt better with a tame header from Alex Bruce from a Quinn cross rather than letting it bounce off his left post, allowing Curtis Davies to joyfully snaffle the rebound. The reason so many Hull defenders were in forward positions was that they had just come up for a free-kick that Arsenal only half-cleared.
As one of the major questions about Hull's ability to contest this final was whether they would score a goal at all, with Shane Long injured and Nikica Jelavic ineligible, scoring twice in the opening eight minutes was an entirely unexpected boost.
The only nagging doubt at the back of Hull minds would have been whether the goals had come too early. They had caught Arsenal off guard but Wenger's side did have recognised goalscorers and as long as they did not panic still had more than 80 minutes to play themselves back into the match.
Those fears began to take shape when Santi Cazorla arrowed a shot direct from a free-kick into Allan McGregor's top-left corner after Bruce had fouled him a couple of yards outside the area. Sumptuous as the strike was, there was not much bend or dip on the shot, and the goalkeeper had a clear enough sight of it to be disappointed when it flew past him.
Arsenal were dominating the game by the end of the first half, rarely allowing Hull the opportunity to cross the halfway line, and could have been level had Ramsey been able to supply a finish when Mesut Özil rolled a ball invitingly across the Hull goal. Bruce had seen a header cleared off the line by Aaron Gibbs from a corner, but if Hull were only threatening from set pieces and Arsenal were successfully pinning them in their own half, McGregor's goal was always likely to be the one under threat. When Matty Fryatt managed a rare breakaway just past the half-hour, he looked up from an advanced position on the left and found precisely no one in the middle awaiting a cross or a pass. Huddlestone sent a shot over Fabianski's bar a couple of minutes later to raise an optimistic cheer from the Hull end, though it was from 30 yards out and Arsenal were comfortable with goal attempts from that sort of distance.
Özil pulled another inviting ball back across the Hull goal at the start of the second half but found Lukas Podolski unable to take advantage, before Huddlestone sent another harmless shot over Fabianski's bar merely as a more elegant way of timewasting than some of his team-mates had already been managing. By the hour stage, with Arsenal coming no closer to a goal than a desperately hopeful tumble by Giroud in the hope of a penalty after the slightest of touches by Huddlestone, Wenger sent on Yaya Sanogo to show his pre match tweet was not merely wish fulthinking
With Laurent Koscielny putting a header wide from a corner, however, Arsenal needed a goal to make history and make José Mourinho reconsider his words. As the game entered its final 20 minutes, with the Hull goal far from under siege, Arsenal looked the team under pressure and hopes of a Tiger feat began to grow. So it was slightly cruel when Arsenal equalised, not with a flash of brilliance from Ozil or Ramsey but through a scruffy goal at a set piece. Cazorla's corner was played back towards McGregor's goal by a couple of ricochets from Hull defenders, to allow Koscielny, standing in front of the goalkeeper, to turn and scuff the ball across the line. For the Arsenal fans at that end the goal was a thing of beauty. For the Hull support at the other end of the pitch the disappointment will only increase when they see on television that McGregor was correct in protesting that the corner should never have been awarded in the first place.
Gibbs had the best chance of securing a result in normal time when he produced one of the great Wembley misses from the six-yard line but Ramsey was more deadly when his extra time opportunity arrived. Arsenal's celebrations at the end were almost as heartfelt and joyous as Wigan's last year but, even as Wenger soaked up the champagne, the bookies were quoting his side odds-on to win no trophies next year. For Arsenal this was a huge relief but not quite a fairytale.
No comments:
Post a Comment