Jakirović wants Hull on the front foot at the one ground nobody has left with a point
Hull have drawn five of their nine league games with less of the ball than almost anyone, and their manager says they will be aggressive at Arsenal anyway. Arsenal are the only side in the league to have won every home match.
Hull's 200th Premier League match takes them to the only ground in the division where every visitor has lost. Sergej Jakirović has studied what awaits. "I think, currently, they are playing maybe the best football, together with Paris Saint-Germain," he said of Arsenal, and then: "We will be aggressive, front-footed, try to close those gaps."
Arsenal should win and keep Hull out, since a side that has drawn by sitting deep now says it will come forward at the one ground where every visitor has lost.
That is not how Hull have taken their points. They began their return by beating Manchester United 2-0 and winning at Coventry, and have not won in the league since. In those seven games they lost only to Newcastle and Fulham and drew the other five, at Chelsea among them, while having less than a third of the ball on average, one of the lowest shares in the division.
Arsenal come home after three away games, the last a 2-1 win in Prague in which they spent the second half defending the lead, the kind of half Hull have built their draws on. Playing on the front foot against a side Jakirović ranks with Paris Saint-Germain asks his players to be the Hull of August rather than of October.
They will try it short of midfielders. Matt Crooks is suspended after his fifth booking, Hidemasa Morita has a groin problem, and Eliot Matazo and Darko Gyabi are still out. Arsenal are without Bukayo Saka and Max Dowman, Ezri Konsa is a doubt with a knee problem, and William Saliba, ready after a back injury, could play his first match of the season.
A draw would be Hull's sixth and the first point any side has taken at the Emirates in the league this season. It would also tell Jakirović more about his team than either of the August wins did.
