Saturday afternoon sees the cross-England trek of northerly Hull City down south to The Emirates, a game that last season saw the hosts score twice in the first two minutes of each half to take a comfortable 2-0 home victory. This Premier League fixture was last played on Wednesday 4th December 2013, with Nicklas Bendtner’s first Arsenal goal since March 2011 and Mesut Özil’s careful finish from an Aaron Ramsey pass helping the Gunners beat Hull to keep their lead at the peak of the Premier League.

Hull City came into this fixture still flush from a surprise win against in-form Liverpool the previous Sunday and started the game with an attacking mindset, employing two strikers in attempt to earn a result, a decision that City boss Steve Bruce later described as “foolish”.

When this fixture was played last season in the League, Hull came into the game in exactly the same position they will be on Saturday (11th), while Arsenal are 7 places behind where they were previously, behind all their London rivals, with the exception of QPR. Arsenal boss Arsène Wenger will be keen to see his side get a repeat outcome while City will be seeking to add to their tally of draws this season.

To see how AFC fans may be thinking about this game, we looked at the Beat Your Manager! Fantasy Football data from this fixture last season, to see what players were picked for the lineup last year.
Beat Your Manager! Fantasy Football is a game similar to “Football Manager”, but applied to live football, where you manage your favourite Club and pick lineups, bench, formations and substitutions, all in real-time. When fans play the game, the Beat Your Manager team can measure the popularity of different players, by looking at how frequently they are selected for the starting lineup, substitutes bench or not selected at all.

The app ran for the 2013/4 EPL season and is currently inactive while the developers are creating the revised version – we’ll keep you posted on when it’s going to re-launch. You can check out their Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/beatyourmanager and follow them on Twitter – https://twitter.com/beatyourmanager

Formation: A solid 4-4-2 the choice for Arsenal fans.
A third of Arsenal fans opted for a solid 4-4-2 formation for this game, with the next-most popular formations shared equally (18 per cent of fans) between a more defensive 4-5-1 and a double-pivot 4-2-3-1 to give extra strength in midfield.

Goalkeepers: Szczęsny the only goalie for AFC
Wojciech Szczęsny was jointly Arsenal’s most popular player and easily their most popular goalkeeper for this game, with a perfect 100 per cent rating from Gunners fans, leaving Lukasz Fabiański and Emiliano Viviano to squabble over bench preferences. Wenger agreed with the fans, Szczęsny lining up for this game between the posts. Szczęsny’s dominance of his position in the first-team may well be behind the subsequent moves of both reserve keepers to other clubs (Fabianski’s to Swansea City; Viviano to Sampdoria) in search of first team football.

Defence: Wenger rests half his star defenders
Arsenal had two clear fan favourites in defence in Laurent Koscielny and Bacary Sagna, who were jointly the club’s most popular players for this game, matching Szczęsny’s perfect 100 per cent rating with Gunners fans. Closely-rated Per Mertesacker (91%) and Kieran Gibbs (88%) were Arsenal’s next most popular defenders, giving the club a clear-cut, very highly-rated back four, as the next most popular defender, Thomas Vermaelen (now at Barcelona), rated only 15 per cent for this game. Wenger also fielded Koscielny and Mertesacker, but with an eye on upcoming fixtures against Everton, Manchester City and Chelsea, he rested Sagna and Gibbs, instead starting Nacho Monreal (9 per cent fan rating) and Carl Jenkinson (zero per cent fan rating). Sagna’s move to Manchester City was a big disappointment at the Emirates, but on this evidence, Gunners fans are not going to stress about Vermaelen’s move to Barcelona or Jenkinson’s to West Ham United. Koscielny is currently in doubt for Saturday’s game, while new signings Mathieu Debuchy (from Newcastle United) is injured and Calum Chambers (from Southampton) is banned, so Gunners fans’ (and Wenger’s) options in defence are limited. Expect to see Mertesacker, Gibbs and possibly Koscielny make a return.

Midfield: Özil the favourite of fans and Wenger
Özil was easily Arsenal’s midfielder, with a perfect 100 per cent rating to match Koscielny, Sagna and Szczęsny at the top of the popularity pile for this game. Özil rewarded both fans and Wenger with the closing goal, while his club colleagues Aaron Ramsey (88 per cent), Mikel Arteta (70 per cent) and Jack Wilshere (61 per cent) were equally spaced out in midfield behind the German, Gunners fans also giving Santi Cazorla a mediocre 48 per cent rating. With injuries to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Abou Diaby as well as an eye on the upcoming fixture pileup, Wenger fielded Flamini (6 per cent fan rating) instead of Arteta and Rosicky (18 per cent fan rating) instead of Wilshere, but he did substitute the Englishman for the Czech with 17 minutes left. New signing Alexis Sánchez (from Barcelona) is expected to start on Saturday, but injuries to Özil, Ramsey and Arteta mean that this season’s midfield lineup will look distinctly different to that picked by fans and Wenger last year.

Forwards: Bendtner gets the vote by default, but also gets the opening goal
Planning for the upcoming games, Wenger rested his start striker Olivier Giroud for this game, but fans did not agree with the switch; easily voting him the club’s star forward with a staggering 97 per cent approval for this match. With injuries to Lukas Podolski and Yaya Sanogo, Bendtner was Arsenal’s second-choice striker (on 42 per cent) and he rewarded both fans and manager with a clean strike 2 minutes after the start. Sanogo is again injured for this fixture, but crucially so is Giroud, so Wenger does not have the luxury of resting his star forward for this match. Bendtner now plays at Wolfsburg and is unavailable to work his magic so it falls to Podolski to make a similar contribution this time round, as new signing Danny Welbeck is still in doubt for this game due the injury he picked up playing for England vs Estonia.

Of course let’s not forget that the two sides did meet in the 2014 FA Cup Final where Wenger’s Arsenal came from 2-0 down to beat Steve Bruce’s plucky Hull City side 3-2 to end their 9 year trophy drought so the Tigers will have revenge on their minds while Arsene will want a win no-matter what to start to put a winning streak together which he desperately needs despite the plethora of injuries decimating his squad choices.

Thanks to our friends at http://beatyourmanager.com/ for the data and many of the insights. Check out other stats from last year’s game in the infographics available on our Facebook Page.