Arsenal must beat Hull to stay in title race

Arsenal suffered their first league defeat of the season just prior to the international break to title rivals Chelsea and manager Arsene Wenger will want to see his team return to winning ways at home to Hull City. Losing again to Jose Mourinho clearly hurt the Arsenal manager and the Frenchman will be eager to get going again after having to wait so long between games with the Euro 2016 qualifiers taking place.

Hull City manager Steve Bruce will be pleased with his teams start to the season as they find themselves sitting in 11th position in the Premier League table and only one point adrift of their more illustrious opponents, Arsenal. The former Manchester United defender will be eager for his team to get revenge after losing the FA Cup final to Arsenal last season after leading the match 2-0 after only ten minutes at Wembley.

Despite only winning one of their three home matches this season, a 1-0 win over West Bromwich Albion, Arsenal are 4/9 favourites with william hill to defeat Hull City at the Emirates. This may be partly due to the fact that they still remain undefeated at home in their last 21 Premier League matches but also because they beat Hull on all three occasions that they met last season. This will give Arsenal the confidence that they can take all three points in this one but Wenger has a number of injury concerns ahead of the game and Arsenal will be weaker because of it. Arsenal are likely to be without key players such as Ozil, Ramsey, Walcott, Giroud and Debuchy plus Koscielny is due to face a late fitness test, meaning they could be lacking in numbers defensively. This makes the prospect of both teams to score more likely and can be backed at 5/6 with bet365. With Arsenal also missing some big names in attack it will fall to Danny Welbeck, 4/1 with bet365 to score first and Alexis Sanchez, 11/8 with betfred to score at any time as the home teams main goal scoring threat.

Hull have proved to be an entertaining watch this season, finding the back of the net more regularly than they were last season but being much more open at the back as a result. Hull secured all three points in their last match at home to Crystal Palace and they are 8/1 with SkyBet to come away from the Emirates with another win. If they are to be successful, in form striker Nikica Jelavic, who has scored four goals in seven matches this season, will be their main goal scoring hope and the Croat is 10/1 with bet365 to get the first goal and a very tempting 4/1 with betfred to score at any time.

As mentioned above, Hull`s goal scoring exploits this season have come at a cost, conceding ten goals in their last five games. If they are to come away from this game with anything, a goal scoring draw is a good bet at 5/1 with BetVictor. If they are to win the game, betfred offer 20/1 for that to happen and Jelavic to score. With Arsenal missing first choice defenders and Hull struggling to keep goals out themselves the 4/6 offered by SkyBet for over 2.5 goals is worth a punt.

Go To bet365

#Ad

17/10/2014     © Frixo 2024