Arsenal hit back following week of scrutiny to put two past Marco Silva's Hull and return to winning ways

It is on occasions like this when, really, you have to hand it to Arsene Wenger - as Alexis Sanchez and Sam Clucas very tangibly did.

For all the justifiable debate that it’s the same old season every time and that the way stability has led to stagnation are huge reasons why the manager should go, this win over Hull City emphasised one clear and consistent positive of that stability. Wenger’s Arsenal almost always clinch victory in situations like this. They have a remarkable self-correction mechanism, that is probably the biggest reason why they always get top four but little more. Just when they’re on the brink of a real breakthrough, they lose, but the flipside of that is, just when it looks like they’re about to suffer a proper cave-in, they win.

This was that, as Wenger largely got the ‘united front’ he demanded, after a week that has seen so much criticism and speculation about his future.

He also got a bit of luck, as the key goal came from a Hull clearance on the line hammering straight back in off Sanchez’s upward-pointing right hand. Wenger might fairly say “that’s just football”, given how Chelsea’s first goal last week might well have been disallowed, even if that is little consolation for Marco Silva.

The reality is that Hull defended nowhere near as well as against other top-six sides, and Arsenal probably did enough to deserve a win, at least in the first half.

That is all the more impressive because this fixture seemed to have so many of the ingredients to really heighten that pressure on Wenger.

Aside from a difficult week that fed a notably nervous atmosphere going up to kick-off and beyond, Hull seemed to be the kind of resolute side almost ideally set up for frustrating a side like Arsenal. The home side were initially frustrated, although not because of Hull’s defending. Wenger’s side actually punched repeated holes in that backline… only to repeatedly miss the kind of opportunities that amp up that palpable anxiety.

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On 15 minutes, Hector Bellerin blazed wide after being touched through by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. Then, just a moment later, Sanchez seemed to find his way through after an Oxlade-Chamberlain burst, only for his low shot to roll just past the post as Eldin Jakupovic stood seemingly stuck to the ground.

Around all of this, there were two aspects of the game that only increased Arsenal anxiety further. First, Hull looked dangerous almost every time they went forward - even if it was hard to know whether that was down to the quality of their attack or just how ready Arsenal seemingly were to make a mistake. Lazar Markovic rolled an inviting ball across Petr Cech’s goal, before the goalkeeper then just about palmed away a close-range header from Oumar Niasse.

Secondly, there was the worrying poor form from Arsenal’s primary play-maker - Mesut Ozil. It is his job to make the attack move with proper slickness and pace but the German was here only moving with a conspicuous hesitancy and lack of confidence. There were two occasions in the first half alone when Ozil seemed to be in a prosperous position in the Hull box, only to show none of his usual fluency, delay, and make the wrong decision to totally slow down an Arsenal attack. As he blazed one volley over the bar, from a similar position to where he scored against Chelsea in September, it was easy to see why he hadn’t scored since 10 December and a 3-1 win over Stoke City - conspicuously, the very game before he got so much criticism for allowing Ashley Williams to score a winning header for Everton unchallenged.

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He was just finding everything so difficult. Even his self-indulgent flicks were going nowhere, as with one wasteful move late in the game demonstrated.

Wenger had notably said that his two highest-profile players should not be “singled out” for poor performance on the eve of this game, only for one of them to show exactly why they are so deservedly singled out for positive performances in victory. Sanchez had been the player probing and pressing the most throughout the first half and, if there was a large amount of luck to how he got his goal, it was also the result of the willingness to put himself in that position.

That still made for a nervous second half where Hull refused to give up, and refused to yield to Arsenal. That was never more evident than when Theo Walcott got into a flashpoint with Harry Maguire early in the second half, and the Arsenal winger got right in the defender’s face.

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It was finally a bit of fight from Walcott, albeit exactly a week too late, since he could have done with a similar attitude when just drifting away from Pedro in the move for Chelsea’s opening goal last week.

You could say he personifies Arsenal in that regard, and they are again showing too little too late, except they did need this win.

They finally made sure of it when exploiting a Hull attack, as a breakaway in stoppage time led to Clucas blocking a goalbound header from substitute Lucas Perez with his hand.

Sanchez got his second from the spot, and Wenger was no longer quite on the spot.

Questions remain about Arsenal right now, but as shown today they are always capable of taking situations like this with two hands.