Arsenal defeat Hull City 3-2 after extra time to win the FA Cup

Arsenal celebrate their FA Cup victory as Arsene Wenger lifts the trophy

Arsenal defeated Hull City 3-2 after extra time to lift the FA Cup for a 11th time, and ended their trophy drought of 9 years.

Hull pushed Arsenal onto the back foot right from the beginning of the match, as ex-Manchester United player James Chester gave Hull the lead as he executed a cute finish to divert a wayward shot from Tom Huddlestone into the bottom corner of the goal.

Arsenal were visibly shocked by the instant goal, and tried mounting a comeback, but were made to suffer again, as Hull made them pay for some lax defending. Stephen Quinn curled in a lovely cross which was met with a header by Alex Bruce. His header was saved not so convincingly by Fabianski, and Curtis Davies beat Kieron Gibbs to the rebound to double Hull’s advantage.

Immediately after Hull’s second, they could have added a third but Gibbs cleared Bruce’s header off the line.

Arsenal were shaken by Hull’s attacking approach to the game, but credit to them, they did not lose belief, and started playing themselves back into the game.

Midway through the first half, Santi Cazorla struck an accurate freekick into the top left corner, but just as with Hull’s second goal, the keeper should have done better.

Arsenal then dominated the rest of the half but could not find the equalizer before the break.

The second half saw Arsenal take the game by the scruff of the neck as they fashioned chance after chance, as Giroud saw a shot saved off the line, and Podolski couldn’t direct his attempt very well, and saw it deflected for a corner.

Mesut Ozil was quite influential, as he continued stretching the Hull defense, and making runs in the channels, which created space for the others to try and score.

However, for all their pressure, Arsenal couldn’t find a way through, and it seemed like a similar story to all their recent pivotal games. But they caught a lucky break when Koscielny was able to turn in a disputed set piece after the ball had been deflected a couple of times in the box.

With a spring in their step, Arsenal went in search of the winner, and both Giroud and Sanogo had great chances, with Giroud’s saved very well by McGregor, and Sanogo shooting just wide.

The best chance of the game however fell to Kieron Gibbs, who skied his effort over the bar and wasted the chance to finish the game in regulation time.

Wenger was prepared for the extra 30 minutes, as he brought on Wilshere and Rosicky who added some much needed energy and drive. Olivier Giroud was unlucky as he hit the bar in the first period of extra time. It took till the 19th minute of extra time for Arsenal to take the lead, as Aaron Ramsey applied a smart finish first time to Giroud’s cute back pass.

As Hull tried to mount a comeback, Arsenal were dealt a big scare when Fabianski came out of his area and couldn’t stop Aluko, but his shot went narrowly wide, and another attempt by him was saved by Fabianski.

As the final whistle went, there were jubilant scenes across Wembley as Arsenal finally celebrated a trophy after 9 long years, while Hull City could be very proud of their performance as they concluded  a successful return to the Premier League.