Arsenal: November & December update.

Hi everyone, welcome back to my Arsenal story. In this post you will find out how we ended 2010 in the November & December update.

NOVEMBER RESULTS

5 games were played in this month. Our first was against Panathinaikos, a Champions League game, which we won comfortably 2-0, Dzeko scoring a good double. This victory confirmed our place in the Champions League knockout stages. Our next game was against our good old rivals Man UTD. We were away and I regard this as a good point gained. Nemanja Vidic gave them the lead in the 52nd minute. Time was ticking and I was getting angrier, our performance was below average. In the end we had to thank Eduardo who got us an 87th minute equalizer through a real poachers goal. We also played Bolton at home, Cesc Fabregas scored two excellent goals in this game, I will show the best goal later on in the post.

Our best performance of the month was against Wolfburg:

As you know, we already qualified to the next stage so I played a weaker team. We were controlling the game, we had 5 clear cut chances but we just about scored 2 goals! Thomas Vermaelan suffered an injury early in the game, he will be ruled out for 2 weeks. Wolfsburg took an early lead through Obafemi Martins, I was absolutely shocked! Straight away, I made a double substitution, Dzeko and Arshavin came on. Robin Van Persie leveled the game by scoring a penalty. In  the last minute we had some good fortune, Otamendi’s shot was deflected in by a Wolfsburg defender

Our next game was against Fulham:

We threw away a two goal lead and missed a penalty!!! (grr) I was realy dissapointed with this result but on the positive side, Robin Van Persie was back with the goals. We had 26 shots, 12 on target, and 7 clear cut chances, we should have killed the game. Luckily, title rivals, Man City also dropped points.

GOAL OF THE MONTH:

As you know the goal of the month was Cesc Fabregas’ goal vs Bolton Wanderers

PLAYER OF THE MONTH

I didn’t have  to think about this decision as the Premier League already made it up for me. Club captain, Cesc Fabregas lead by example and got player of the month award.

DECEMBER RESULTS

We played 9 games in this month! The last three each played after 2 days! During the month we also had a centre-back crisis, at one point I was left to play Alex Song and Sol Campbell at the back. Fortunately all my centre-backs have recovered now. We also had Robin Van Persie scoring 2 hatricks when he was playing in his favourite position, you will find out why later on. We won all of our games apart from the away draw vs Inter. Our first game of the month was at home to Manchester United, the quarter-final of the league cup, we won 3-1, I was very happy with the performance. We will face Man City in the next round. After the game we recieved some bad news, Edin Dzeko has suffered an injury and will be out for 3 to 4 months :-(. We had to hope on Van Persie to start banging in the goals and fortunatey he had done. Dzeko’s injury has also given Carlos Vela some extra game time. We then went to Milan, I played a weaker team as we already progressed to the next round. It wasn’t the best of games and we came back with a point.

In the month we had comfortable wins vs Aston Vila, Hull City and Burnley. In these games Van Persie scored 6 goals, Arshavin scored 3. We wern’t missing Dzeko too much up to now. Van Persie also scored an excellent goal vs Hull City which I will show later on in the post.

At the end of the month we had to play 3 games in 6 days!! I was steaming when I saw this, but this gave me the opportunity to make the most of my squad. We won the last three games also but the tiredness was coming into the games vs Pompey and Wigan, but my players showed up to the game vs Liverpool and won in good fashion. Van Persie scored another excellent goal, I will also show this later on in the post.

GOAL OF THE MONTH

The Premier League decided for me which goals were the goals of the month for my team:

PLAYER OF THE MONTH

I didn’t have  to think about this decision as the Premier League already made it up for me. Winger, Theo Walcott scored 3 goals in the month, performed some very good performances and lead by example and got player of the month award.

Robin Van Persie came second, he scored 12 goals and has replaced Edin Dzeko excellently.

I also had a nice message at my desk on 1st of January:

I was given manager of the month, I’m pretty chuffed with that :D

League Table:

Despite our straight 7 league wins, Man City still lead the table with 2 points, it seems it is going to be close.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE NEWS

The first knockout stage we will face Rubin Kazan. A nice draw for us.

Squad

As you can see, Robin Van Persie is the best player, followed by Simon Vuckevic and Bacary Sagna

Well thats it folks, hope you enjoyed this big update. Take Care. Sayam