We all knew what it would probably be like. I talked about it on Friday when I did some analysis on what sort of football Hull City play; it’s direct, they go long to McBurnie, they try to put crosses in and they will play with a back five.

Hull aren’t in the best of form, having not won since the opening two match weeks of the season, but that doesn’t mean they’re relegation fodder, because they have proven themselves organised and difficult to break down. And that’s what happened yesterday afternoon; we got a team who played for a point, who gave up plenty of tactical fouls in innocuous positions to avoid repeat bookings, but also make the game a bit stop-start and disruptive.

So against that backdrop, all we really needed to do yesterday was to pick up three points by hook or by crook. That’s it. No more, no less, and Martin Odegaard’s second half winner proved enough in a low incident game in which we were never really troubled too much if we’re honest.

Well, I say ‘low incident’, but there was one in the first half that was worth discussing, which was the non-penalty decision. It was really frustrating in the ground to have to deal with the VAR delay, but then to find out afterwards that the decision should have been a penalty anyway, is just shocking from ProRef and the officials on the day. Thankfully, it didn’t impact the outcome of the game, but if it had, there would be a lot of questions asked this morning.

From my perspective, I know that technically we should have been awarded the penalty, but I think the laws are probably just written wrong in this instance. So I have a little bit of sympathy for the officials here. Havertz is standing in an offside position. When the cross comes in he is starting to make his run towards the Hull goal. He is offside and the semi automated technology should have told the referee that. When that happens, you don’t even need to send him to the screen. He can just say to Havertz “I would have given you a pen under a VAR review, but you were offside mate” and Havertz is probably annoyed, but he’s accepting it. I get that the rules state that he wasn’t ‘active’, but again, I don’t really think that should be the rule. I’ve seen this a few times and I’m kind of the mind to think that this should involve a re-write of the rules to simplify them and state that in that instance, Havertz is offside.

So whilst I’m no fan of ProRef (as already stated today above), I do have some sympathy for them in that the rules feel a bit too opaque for me, but the fact that they can’t even apply their own rules properly, kind of tells its own story about the organisation.

It didn’t matter though, we get all three points, and some decent performances from a select few players that I think are worth talking about. Madueke, for example, has really stepped up since he’s been given a run in the team. I thought he was great yesterday and I’m really pleased that Saka’s prolonged absence isn’t being as keenly felt, because Noni is stepping up and easily having his best spell in an Arsenal shirt. It was his shot that led to the ‘keepers spill that Ødegaard tucked away. He was a menace all afternoon ti the Hull left back, and although he’ll be disappointed not to be in the England squad for the upcoming internationals, the good news for us is that it keeps him fresh and fit for our trip to Newcastle in a couple of weeks time.

I thought the skipper had a good second half too, although in the first half it felt like Ødegaard was doing a little too much of the usual ‘drop deep between the centre backs to collect the ball’ stuff that he likes to do. When he is at his best, he’s dropping in behind the opposition defence and midfield, not our own, and I think we had more of that in the second half.

For the rest of the team, it felt like a solid ‘seven-out-of-ten’ performance, although I’d question whether a good international break for Gyokeres shouldn’t get him the chance to start when the proper football resumes. I thought Big Vik did well when he came on, whereas I thought Havertz had another slightly iffy game, especially in one moment, when Ødegaard slid him in and he checked back to get the ball onto his favoured left foot, only for the defender to cut it out. Just hit it first time mate. That’s what Gyokeres would have done if he’d have had that opportunity. Kai’s for, isn’t great right now, Gyokeres has had so,e good performances, so I wonder if Arteta might think about starting him up at St James’ Park if Viktor has another good time away with Sweden this upcoming week.

And so we keep on winning, which is nice, and especially more so given the early game saw Leeds beat the Scum, then the late game in the day had Forest do us a favour by slapping up City in Nottingham. Lovely stuff. We’re six points clear of the cheaters, and if Brentford can get anything at home to an in-form, Brighton, then we can really look at this weekend as being a superb one from an Arsenal perspective.

What a great way to head into an international break, eh?