Hull achieved one of the shocks of last season when they triumphed 2-1 at the Emirates in September 2008. A repeat seems highly unlikley as Hull’s away form has been wretched in 2009 and they are without midfield dynamo Jimmy Bullard, whose troublesome knee threatens to derail any attempts to climb the table. Arsenal are not entirely without problems of their own, however; after scoring 36 goals in their first 11 games, they have manged just five in five without Robin van Persie who picked up an injury on international duty. Richard Flower

Venue Emirates Stadium

Tickets Sold out

Last season Arsenal 1 Hull 2

Referee S Bennett

This season’s matches 12 Y49, R2, 4.25 cards per game

sportingbet odds Arsenal 3-20 Hull 14-1 Draw 5-1

Arsenal

Subs from Fabianski, Mannone, Mérida, Senderos, Ramsey, Eboué, Wilshere, Eduardo, Vela

Doubtful None

Injured Fábregas (hamstring, 27 Dec), Traoré (hamstring, 27 Dec), Clichy (back, 30 Dec), Bendtner (groin, Jan), Rosicky (groin, Jan), Gibbs (ankle, Feb), Djourou (knee, Apr), Van Persie (ankle, Apr)

Suspended None

Form guide DWWLLW

Disciplinary record Y25 R0

Leading scorers Fábregas, Van Persie 7

Hull

Subs from Duke, Mouyokolo, Mendy, Olofinjana, Barmby, Ghilas, Cousin, Altidore, Vennegoor of H, Halmosi, Kilbane, Sonko

Doubtful None

Injured Bullard (knee, Jan), Ashbee (knee, May)

Suspended None

Form guide DLDWDW

Disciplinary record Y31 R2

Leading scorers Geovanni, Hunt 3

Match pointers

• Hull beat Arsenal here last season, becoming the only team to concede first at the Emirates and go on to win

• Arsenal have won 10 of their last 12 home games, all by at least a two goal margin

• Boaz Myhill has made the most saves per game (4.2) of any regular goalkeeper

• Cesc Fábregas already has 12 assists this season, two more than he got in the whole of the last campaign

• Hull recorded victories in four of their first five Premier League away matches but have won only one of their ensuing 22 away games

ArsenalHull CityPremier Leagueguardian.co.uk

The man who serenaded the Hull City crowd with a Beach Boys song is now striking all the wrong notes

Swing east along the M62 towards Hull and, as signs for the Humber Bridge start appearing, a distinct sense of schadenfreude seeps into the autumn air. With vultures from the media and, rather more pertinently, accountancy worlds suddenly circling the KC Stadium, delight at the misfortunes being endured by Phil Brown and Hull City grows apace.

Both manager and board have, it seems, lost the plot. While Brown teeters on the brink of the sack, the erstwhile chairman Paul Duffen today resigned in the wake of Hull auditors Deloitte’s public raising of doubts about the club’s ability to continue as “a growing concern”. Duffen appears certain to be replaced by the former owner Adam Pearson.

A year ago, it was all so very different. Freshly promoted to the Premier League for the first time Hull appeared shiny and new and the extrovert Brown a breath of fresh air. When they briefly occupied a Champions League place Sam Allardyce’s former assistant found himself hyped as a future England coach while Duffen was hailed as a “model” chairman. Behind the scenes, though, things were unravelling. The night before Hull won at Newcastle last September there was a worrying incident which, with hindsight, should have served as a portent of reckless acts to come.

Shortly after his team checked into a Northumberland country hotel, the South Shields-born Brown was foolishly drawn into an argument with a Geordie wedding party about his long-standing love of Sunderland. Things turned nasty and, at around 10pm, Hull’s manager made the slightly bizarre decision to order his entire squad out of their rooms, transferring them to an alternative property an hour’s drive away on Newcastle quayside.

At the time it was shrugged off as merely part of the manager’s somewhat endearing eccentricity, but on Boxing Day, a switch again flipped inside Brown’s brain and, this time, it had more serious consequences. That infamous half-time freak-out on the Manchester City pitch – where his players were publicly berated at half-time during a 5-1 defeat – prompted a dismal run in which Hull won just one Premier League game until May. No matter, when the team narrowly avoided relegation after losing at home to Manchester United on last season’s final afternoon, Brown picked up a microphone and serenaded the KC Stadium with a rendition of a Beach Boys number.

It served to drain the final shred of credibility from a man whose ego has eclipsed a genuine coaching talent. Not for nothing was Brown credited with choreographing much of the success Bolton enjoyed under Allardyce and, initially, in East Yorkshire, his much admired, often match-winning, knack of tailoring varying systems and tactics to assorted opponents deservedly earned numerous plaudits. Intelligent players including Nick Barmby were impressed by his fusion of Allardyce-esque pragmatism with the attack-minded purist passing principles Bruce Rioch had instilled in Brown during his days as a Bolton full-back.

Unfortunately, though, as results deteriorated caution increasingly crept into those once vibrant game-plans and murmurs of discontent from the dressing room indicated that Hull’s players had begun to suspect that their manager’s suddenly gratingly brash and blingy facade concealed clay feet.

Falling-outs with Dean Windass and Geovanni hardly helped but neither did the career-threatening knee injury Jimmy Bullard suffered 37 minutes into his Hull debut last January. Apart from the fact that the team craved an incisive striker more than a dynamic midfielder, Bullard’s arrival for £5m and £50,000 weekly wages, despite a knee problem, emphasised Duffen’s growing loss of judgment. The chairman and manager were extremely close, too close perhaps, and Duffen’s high-risk gamble on Bullard seemed emblematic of his willingness to put Brown’s wishes ahead of the club’s future stability.

The club’s books were refusing to balance. Hull submitted their latest set of accounts five months late, immediately triggering alarm bells. And with good reason. Pearson’s imperative will be somehow to restructure the financing of a concern that Deloitte estimates needs to raise £23m to survive in the event of relegation and £16m should Premier League status be retained.

One of Pearson’s final acts during his first incarnation by the Humber – a tenure during which Hull moved out of dilapidated Boothferry Park and rose through the divisions, initially under Peter Taylor – was to appoint Brown. Now he must spend the weekend deliberating whether to make axing the manager his first move on Monday.

Hull CityPhil BrownPremier LeagueLouise Taylorguardian.co.uk