Finally! Arsenal Wins FA Cup to End Trophy Drought!

Three observations from Arsenal’s 3-2 extra time victory over Hull City in the FA Cup final.
Archetypal Arsenal
We’ve seen it all before this season in the big games: the match kicks off and Arsenal don’t. They didn’t turn up for the first 20 minutes. No one took control in the Arsenal midfield. They were rudderless.
The difference here is that Arsenal were not playing a Liverpool side which their rich attacking talent. There was no Luis Suarez, Raheem Sterling or Daniel Sturridge.
This was Hull, a team which finished the season down the gears in preparation for this match. A team without the expensively assembled January strikeforce of Shane Long and Nikica Jelavic.
But again the Gunners froze. Hull went at them with a gameplan and they didn’t know how to react to it.
The Tigers knew they had found a weakness in the Arsenal defence, hitting the deep ball, often to Alex Bruce and often from set plays, and for the first 15 minutes there was no answer.
The impossible became possible in the fourth minute. A deep corner was played to the edge of the area for Tom Huddlestone, whose mis-hit volley fell to the feet of James Chester — with the central defender finding the bottom corner of Lukasz Fabianski’s net with an intelligent flick.
And within moments the horror for Arsenal was doubled. The cross came in from the left, it was Bruce who got there first and when his header came back off the post it was Hull’s other centre-back, Player of the Season and captain Curtis Davies, who made no mistake to coolly fire home from close range.
The Hull fans were in sheer disbelief; they came here in hope rather than expectation. Now all their dreams were coming true.
The Gunners were saved by Santi Cazorla’s brilliance, when he curled home a wonderful set-piece. Arsenal hadn’t had a kick, the Hull box was an oasis deep into the desert. And Arsenal were desperate.
It took a scrappy finish from Laurent Koscielny to bring Arsenal back in level terms in the second half, and while they had been pushing for the leveller, it was hardly a reward they deserved.
That was when the game changed, because for the first time Arsenal were truly on the ascendancy. It’s how they prefer to play, when the stars can shine and express themselves on the ball without the fear which can grip them so easily.
But while Hull made changes to bring on fresh legs as they tired, legs becoming heavier by the moment, the only substitution Wenger made until halftime in extra-time was to replace Lukas Podolski with Yaya Sonogo. The players may have frozen in the first half; it was as though Wenger did in the second. He had the chance to make more of Hull’s clear fatigue, but did nothing.
It was fitting that Aaron Ramsey was the player to score the extra-time winner, and get Wenger out of jail. The man who they missed for three crucial months when their title challenge died. A season in 120 minutes.
Mikel Arteta may be their captain, but he is no leader. They have no player capable of taking control of a position of adversity and organising them when they are ramshackled.
They might have come through this today, but Wenger must fix this area of his team if they are to return to former glories.
Drought finally over
To call the nine-year trophy drought an albatross around their neck would be an understatement, so much so that this one game had become central to the future of Arsene Wenger. He may now stay, free of the stigma of endless years without silverware.
That Hull have played at Wembley the same number of times as Arsenal since the stadium reopened in 2007 underlines how the Gunners have struggled to overcome what has become a psychological problem for the club as a whole. And this game provided clear parallels with their shock League Cup final defeat to Birmingham City three years ago.
It’s become a stick to beat the Gunners with, and Wenger’s insistence that finishing in the top four and earning Champions League football represented a trophy of sorts only added to the ridicule.
While Arsenal have stagnated, the rest of Europ

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