I’ve lived in fear of one thing since the start of the season:

Having to be a recipient of that utterly tragic and awful “you’re getting mauled by the Tigers” chant that the Hull City fans busted out against United and do on a regular basis when they are ahead. It’s so cringey, it must be infuriating to opposition fans, and I really hope our miserly defence can go full Gandalf “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” tomorrow, because I really don’t want to have to deal with it.

And now I really hope I haven’t manifested it into existence…

Sergej Jakirovic had his press conference yesterday, and he’ll be hoping for quite the opposite of what I want, obviously. He gave us praise as the best team in Europe, as well as PSG, and hinted that they are going to be a little different tomorrow with a few plans up their sleeve. It’s interesting because the last time I heard that it was Tonda Eckert for Southampton, and whilst I am heavily refusing the urge to make a few iPhone Spygate quips at him, Southampton did out-play us in the FA Cup and then went on to beat us at St Mary’s last season. So I’m sure I can be forgiven for hearing that from an upcoming opposition manager.

I also think there’s a very real chance that we’re a little sluggish tomorrow, given we seem to have played 29,362 away games this season already. Yes, there was some rotation, but the team was out in Prague on Wednesday, will have had Thursday off, and then have today to prepare for Hull. Whereas the Tigers have had all week to put their “Plan A, B and C” together. This game tomorrow can’t be taken for granted, and I’m sure Arteta has spent plenty of time since the game ended on Wednesday night and through tomorrow at 3pm doing his analysis on Hull.

He’ll have a lot more data on them than I do, but from what I can see, on a player basis, their main creative threat this season is Mohamed Belloumi, who leads the Hull team for shots, although in the Premier League in total there are 11 other players (none of them from Arsenal) who have had more. I’ve seen him a couple of times in highlights and for most of the United game they won at the beginning of the season, and he’s got a few tricks about him. So we’ll need to watch out.

The only other individual stats I found that were interesting were that their left back Ryan Giles has put more crosses in from the left than any other player this season – by a mile. He’s swung the ball in 52 times, with Truffert (Bournemouth) and Williams (Forest) next in that list on 32. As a result, he’s also had the highest number of successful crosses, but only nine – so they very much play the volume numbers game on their left-hand side. They also have Ollie McBurnie, who has won more aerial duels than any other player in the league – he’s going to fancy his chances then, albeit against our two big lads Konsa and Gabriel. But the data is starting to build a pattern of the style of play we might see tomorrow. Their ‘keeper has almost made the second-most saves in the Premier League. He’s been a busy boy so far.

From a team perspective, Hull are probably punching a bit above their weight so far, and as James said on the pod earlier in the week, he watched them in the Playoff final, and they weren’t great – I’ve heard that a fair bit about Hull from last season. But we thought the same in 2008, and look what happened to us on our first home league game – a bloodied nose by Phil Parkinson’s Hull.

This Hull side are second-bottom in terms of xG created, so they don’t really fashion high-quality shot chances, and they don’t take a lot of shots either – second-bottom in the Premier League again for that on 96. To give you an idea of where that stands, Man United are top for number of shots they’ve taken, on 167 – so it’s just under double the amount. On set pieces, they have four so far, which is joint third in the league, and their touches in the opponents’ box is third from the bottom. They’ve taken the least number of passes of any team in the league, and when it comes to the direction of the pass, they go long and forward almost as much as Coventry. They also don’t string passes together.

So kids, what have we learned based on the data?

  1. Hull don’t have a lot of the ball
  2. They seem left-side dominant
  3. They’re going to try to go long and direct as quickly as possible – with McBurnie probably the target man
  4. They rely on their ‘keeper having a great season.

I think there’s data to suggest that if we are going to win tomorrow, we’ll probably have to break down a lower block that is going to go long and look for knockdowns. So patience might be the name of the game. On the team news, they’re apparently missing a bunch of players, including Butland, Gourna-Douath, Hughes, Targett, Gyabi, Matazo and Ansah, with Crooks suspended (yeah, I have no idea either). I saw a review on one of their forums suggesting they’ll go 5-4-1, with a few of the standard and random “I hate Arsenal” vibes from weirdos on the internet. I’mnot quite sure what we ever did to Hull, but there you go.

The pundits are going for Arsenal wins, but I think everyone agrees it will be a defensive low block and an attempt to have a frustrating afternoon for The Arsenal. Which makes me laugh that if that plays out, we’re going to get labelled with the ‘boring to watch’ tab. How about we have a team come out at us for once in a while?

Chris Sutton has gone up against Football Manager the game, and in that simulation, it’s a 1-0 Declan Rice goal that wins it for us. Apparently scored on 27 minutes, which I’d take as far as first halves go. Sutton himself goes for a 2-0. Lewis Jones on Sky Sports goes for a 2-0, so we’re getting close to the ‘full house’ stage with these predictions online – let’s hope it is that simple tomorrow.

Arteta will have his press conference today, so have a better idea on team rotation and who’s fit, but for me I’m just hoping to only hear positive stuff ahead of a tricky one at home – they all are to be fair.

Back tomorrow with a match preview after we’ve heard what Arteta has to say.