After a pretty uneventful transfer window, Arsenal have now gone out and signed two players on the same day! The only thing that I find a bit unfortunate is the fact that Ceballos is only here on a one-year loan, and Saliba is going back to Saint-Étienne for a year. I will write a little about who both the players are below and give them a rating out of 10 about how good I think the signing is.

Dani Ceballos

Dani Ceballos is a 22-year-old Spanish midfielder who formerly played for Real Madrid. He has signed a deal reportedly worth £15m and will be with us for the next year. He played a part in Spain’s U21 World Cup triumph. I was a little bit nervous because there was talk that he would join Sp*rs instead. I am just hoping that he does well (unlike fellow Spaniard Denis Suárez) and eventually signs a permanent deal. He is supposed to be very skilful which is good because we need a few players like that.

Rating: 8/10 Because I am hopeful that he will play well and sign a permanent deal.

William Saliba

William Saliba is an 18-year-old French defender who formerly played for Saint-Étienne. He has signed a 5-year deal but will spend next season on loan. He is only 18 but apparently reads the game very well and is rock solid at the back. He started 13 games in Ligue 1 last season and has been compared to Raphaël Varane. Fun fact, José Mourinho is a big fan of Saliba and has even gone as far as to say “I think he has everything needed to become a good player, much like Kurt Zouma, who I signed.”

Rating: 6/10 Because he won’t be with us next season and even when he does join us he will only be 19! No team in the Premier League has a 19-year-old centre back.

Anyway, thank you for reading. I am very pleased with our deals but I hope we can sign at least one more player because we need a defender now, especially as Koscielny has gone on strike.

Hi guys, in today’s blog I am going to be writing about our new away kit and the fixtures from pre-season. Enjoy!

Firstly I will talk about the new away kit. It is a throw back to the 1991-93 seasons. In those seasons we won the FA Cup and the League Cup. Iain Wright starred for us, scoring an amazing 56 goals between the two seasons. Those seasons were remembered best for our abstract “bruised banana” kit. This season is our first season back with Adidas, after a long time with Puma and so far our kits are looking great! I love the fact that we are going back to the past and bringing back good memories. It is not as extreme as the original one but it still looks really cool. I will add the official video at the bottom!

Pre-Season!

This season we are competing in the ICC tournament which is an association which organises friendly games for big teams all over the world. Last year Arsenal came to where I live in Singapore but this year we are playing in the USA. In this section I will write a short summary for every game we play. We are also playing two friendly games and the final of both the Emirates Cup and the Joan Gamper Trophy. We will be playing Colorado Rapids, Bayern Munich, Fiorentina, Real Madrid, Lyon, Angers and Barcelona. I will add to this post after we play each friendly.

Arsenal-Colorado Rapids (3-0)

We fielded a very young line-up because the game wasn’t of much importance. A fun fact is that our current owner Stan Kroenke actually owns Colorado Rapids!

In the 13th minute, Bukayo Saka broke past the defence, chipped the ball over the goalkeeper and then poked it in for our first goal. Saka is a 17 year old English winger who has been called the new Lionel Messi. He has been with us for 8 seasons and this is his first goal for the club.

In the 28th minute, James Olayinka intercepted a sloppy pass by a Colorado defender. He sprinted forward, then when he found a pocket of space, he bent the ball past the goalkeeper and into the top corner! Olayinka is an 18 year old English/Nigerian midfielder. I don’t know much about him but I do know that he can hit the ball well.

In the 60th minute, Dominic Thompson broke forward before crossing the ball perfectly into the line of our new signing, Gabriel Martinelli, who chested the ball into the goal. Dominic Thompson is an 18 year old English left back who is playing in the academy and Gabriel Martinelli is our most recent signing. I am really happy that Martinelli scored on his debut for Arsenal because that will give him a lot of confidence.

Arsenal-Bayern Munich (2-1)

In this game we fielded pretty much the best line-up we possibly could which was encouraging – of the players, only Joe Willock didn’t start regularly last season. This game was also our first game in the new yellow kit so I was excited.

Two minutes into the second half, our goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez threw a great ball to Aubameyang who sprinted along the edge of the pitch. He then passed the ball to Ozil. Ozil passed the ball to Mkhitaryan who then lofted it beautifully to Aubameyang. He drilled the ball into the box. It hit Louis Poznanski on the leg and sneaked into the goal at the near post. We had been playing well so I think we deserved that goal.

In the 70th minute, former Arsenal star Serge Gnabry executed a brilliant cross to Robert Lewandowski who headed the ball in to make it 1-1. At that point, it looked like it was surely going to end in a draw.

In the 88th minute, Xavier Amaechi collected the rebound from a corner, performed a one-two with Callum Chambers then slotted the ball into the box where Eddie Nketiah was waiting to tap it into the goal for the winner – with only two minutes to go!

Arsenal-Fiorentina (3-0)

Today we played Italian team Fiorentina. We fielded a mix of youth and experience. This was our second-to-last game of the US tour so I was hoping that we would win because that would mean we could go into the season with some confidence. Today is also the second time we are going to wear our new away kit.

In the 15th minute, Kolasinac dashed down the left-wing. He then cut the ball in to Nketiah who side-stepped his marker, then smacked the ball past the keeper for our first goal. He has been one of our best young players this pre-season along with Joe Willock and I think both of them will get quite a bit of playtime in the proper season.

In the 66th minute, Mkhitaryan made a brilliant run down the flank. He passed the ball to Lacazette who then flicked it to Nketiah. He was one-on-one with the goalkeeper and easily knocked it past him! That was his second goal of the game and his third of pre-season.

In the 89th minute, Lacazette slipped the ball nicely to Joe Willock who absolutely smashed it into the top corner for our third goal and almost definitely the win. We have won three games in a row now!

Arsenal-Real Madrid (2-2) pens (2-3)

Today we were playing one of the best teams in the world – Real Madrid. This was our third and final game of the ICC so I was hoping we could win this game. That would have put us in a good position to win the whole tournament! We went into the game fielding a pretty strong lineup, but I was a bit nervous because they were playing really big players – such as Hazard, Jovic, Modric and Kroos.

Eight minutes into the game, Xhaka slipped the ball to Lacazette, who went around Navas then tried to shoot. The ball was going into the goal before Nacho slid across the goal-line and stopped the ball with his hand! It was a penalty for us and a red card for the defender. Lacazette stepped up to the ball then powered it off the post and in for our first goal of the game!

In the twenty-fourth minute, Lacazette collected a pass then quickly backheeled the ball to Aubameyang who took it in his stride, went past Navas and then smashed it in for our second goal of the game. Ramos actually got a foot on the ball but just put into the top corner. We were looking really good both at the back and up front. Sixteen minutes after the Aubameyang goal, Sokratis was given his second yellow card for blocking a Real Madrid player. We had given away the one man advantage that we had over Real.

In the fifty-seventh minute, we had a cross delivered into our box. Somebody took a touch, then kicked the ball out of Martinez’s hand, before former Sp*rs star Gareth Bale prodded it in to make the score 2-1. I personally don’t think the goal should have stood because the player kicked the ball out of Martinez’s hand.

Three minutes later, Marcelo raced down the flank before cutting the ball back to Marco Asensio who powered it into the goal to level the game. We had gone from 2-0 up at half time to drawing 2-2. I can’t believe that we let our lead slip like that.

After a tight contest near the end, there was a penalty shootout to decide who won! 

• Arsenal – Reiss Nelson (GOAL)
• Real Madrid – Gareth Bale (MISS)
• Arsenal – Granit Xhaka (MISS)
• Real Madrid – Isco (GOAL)
• Arsenal – Bukayo Saka (GOAL)
• Real Madrid – Raphael Varane (GOAL)
• Arsenal – Nacho Monreal (MISS)
• Real Madrid – Vinicius Junior (GOAL)
• Arsenal – Robbie Burton (MISS)

After Robbie Burton’s miss it was assured that we had lost and it is pretty painful to lose after being 2-0 up at half time. I was also left a bit disappointed because during the game Asensio tore his knee ligaments meaning that our almost completed deal for Dani Ceballos may be called off because they play in the same position. But at least we have still got two pre-season games to look forward to before the start of the season, and maybe we can redeem ourselves by beating Real Madrid’s rivals Barcelona!

Arsenal-Lyon (1-2)

Today we played in the Emirates Cup final against Lyon. We were without Kolasinac and Ozil due to the fact that they had been victims of an attempted mugging. Lacazette was playing his former club for the first time since joining us. I was hoping we could bounce back from the Real Madrid loss with a win which might give us some confidence for the start of the season.

Unfortunately, twelve minutes into the game, Lacazette sustained an ankle injury which meant that he had to leave the pitch in a protective boot. It is a shame because he was relishing the opportunity to play his old club and he had been playing well.

Ten minutes before half-time, Mkhitaryan delivered a cross into the path of Aubameyang who flicked the ball past the near post for our first goal. We were 1-0 up and I was feeling pretty confident about the game.

In the 66th minute, Memphis Depay crossed the ball into the box where Manchester United target, Moussa Dembele was waiting to head the ball in to level the score.

With fifteen minutes to go, Dembele destroyed our defence then slotted the ball perfectly past Leno for his second goal of the game. Lyon had turned the game around and for the second time in a row we had completely wasted our first half lead.

Arsenal-Angers (1-1) pens (4-3)

Today we played a friendly game against Angers, who are a French team that play in Ligue 1. We started a very young team which included five teenagers! This was our second to last game of pre-season. Former Gunner Jeff Reine-Adelaide was actually in the starting eleven for Angers so it was interesting to watch him.

Thirteen minutes into the game, an Angers player slipped the ball cleverly through our defence to Farid El Melali. He went around Martinez, then knocked the ball in for the first goal of the game. They were one-nil up already and the game had barely even started!

Four minutes after half time, Guendouzi made an incredible run to the corner flag, skipping past three players in the process, before crossing the ball into the box. Nketiah’s shot was blocked but Nelson collected the rebound then smashed it in to equalise the game. At half time we brought on a few of our more experienced players, and it clearly paid off.

For the rest of the game not much happened, so eventually it went to a penalty shoot-out. This was our second penalty shoot-out of the pre-season and we lost the first one so hopefully we had been practicing!

• Arsenal – Ainsley Maitland-Niles (GOAL)
• Angers – Vincent Manceau (GOAL)
• Arsenal – Joe Willock (GOAL)
• Angers – Pierrick Capelle (GOAL)
• Arsenal – Granit Xhaka (GOAL)
• Angers – Romain Thomas (GOAL)
• Arsenal – Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (GOAL)
• Angers – Wilfried Kanga (MISS)
• Arsenal – Henrikh Mkhitaryan (MISS)
• Angers – Jeff Reine-Adelaide (MISS)

After former Arsenal player Reine-Adelaide missed his penalty, it was confirmed that we had won the game. I’m hoping that this gives us some confidence to beat Barcelona in our next game.

Arsenal-Barcelona (1-2)

Today we played our final game of pre-season against 5-time Champions League winners Barcelona. We were competing in the Joan Gamper Trophy which is a game held every year by Barcelona. We fielded a pretty strong team, but unfortunately Nicolas Pepe couldn’t get his debut.

Thirty-six minutes into the game, Ozil sliced the ball to Aubameyang who spun around Jordi Alba, then smashed the ball into the top corner for our first goal! We had been playing really well and I feel we deserved that goal.

In the sixty-ninth minute, after a scramble in the box, Maitland-Niles attempted to pass the ball back to Leno. The pass wasn’t very accurate so it slowly trickled past Leno and into the goal. Maitland-Niles had made a very silly mistake which he should never have made. It was 1-1 thanks to Maitland-Niles’ own goal.

The rest of the game went on reasonably slowly and it looked like it was going to go to penalties until the final minute of regular time. Sergi Roberto floated the ball over our defence to former Liverpool striker Luis Suarez who volleyed the ball first time past Leno and in to win the game.

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed following Arsenal’s pre-season on my blog. I am a bit disappointed that we ended pre-season in this way, especially as we started it so well. The players who I think played really well are Willock and Nketiah. On another note, the transfer window closes on Thursday so I am hoping that we can maybe sign another player before that (especially a defender). We have been linked with Dayot Upamecano (from RB Leipzig), Daniele Rugani (from Juventus), Philippe Coutinho (from Barcelona) and Kieran Tierney (from Celtic) who are all great players and I hope we can get at least one of them before the window closes. I am guessing that Tierney and Rugani are the most realistic as RB Leipzig are asking for £50m in exchange for Upamecano, and Coutinho recently moved to Barcelona for around £130m and that is way out of our price range.

Hi guys, today I am going to be blogging about some transfer news and our new kit. The last time I posted about Arsenal was on the 17th of March which seems like ages ago now but not that much has actually happened. We beat Napoli from Italy 3-0 on aggregate and Valencia from Spain 5-3 in the Europa League, paving our way to the final – which we embarrassingly lost 4-1 to our arch-enemies Chelsea. We’ve also seen tons of transfer rumours circling and an awesome kit released!

So first I am going to talk about our new kit. For the past five years we have had Puma making our kits but this year we have switched to German brand Adidas who are currently making kits for Manchester United, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Juventus. The kit is probably my favourite kit we have ever had. It is nice and simple and the stripes on the top remind me of the good old days of Tony Adams and David Rocastle. Our goalkeeper’s kit is also pretty cool. It kind of looks like an ocean and the badge and sponsors are neon yellow. I would rate our kits 10/10, so well done Adidas. Our second and third strip haven’t been released yet so that is something to look forward to. At the bottom I have put a few of the promotional videos for the kit.

Now I will talk about transfers. We have had quite a few players linked with us and quite a few players who are rumoured to be leaving us. These are some of the deals that have been confirmed.

• We have signed Gabriel Martinelli, an 18 year old Brazilian forward who formerly played for Ituano Futebol Clube. He signed for us on the 2nd of July. We signed him for £6 million.

• Unfortunately we have sold David Ospina to Napoli. He has been with us for 5 years but due to the signing of Cech and Leno he hasn’t been able to play much recently. He spent last year on loan in Naples. According to The Sun, he has been sold for £3.1 million. He is Colombia’s first choice keeper and their most capped goalkeeper ever so I think we sold him for too little.

• Unfortunately we have also lost Aaron Ramsey on a free transfer to Juventus. He has been with us for 11 years and has been one of our best players for a while. I was only 3 months old when he signed for us! I find it a bit annoying that he has left for free because last season he was definitely one of our top 5 players.

6 Arsenal transfer rumours and how much I want them to happen!

Wilfried Zaha – He is an Ivorian forward who currently plays for Crystal Palace. He is an amazing player who brings a real sense of unpredictability and pace going forward. He and his family have also talked about how much a fan of Arsenal he is. He apparently supported us when he was a kid. He is also 26 years old so still pretty young. The only problem is that because he is such a good player and Palace are (no offence) one of the smaller teams in the Premier League they are asking for £100 million. Which is almost three times our budget because we didn’t win the Europa League.

How much I want it to happen: 9/10 – We can always use a good player in our team and we have lost Ramsey so he would fill that gap.

How much I think it will happen: 5/10 – It is a lot of money but there were rumours that we would swap a few players for him.

Kieran Tierney – He is a Scottish left-back who currently plays for Celtic. I haven’t seen him play much because I don’t watch much of the Scottish League but I have heard he is a really good player and you have to be pretty good if you are an international player at the age of only 22. They are asking for £25 million which is a Scottish League record for a player transferred out. The former record is only £20 million for Moussa Dembélé when he left Celtic for Lyon. We are also in need of a left-back because Monreal is getting old, Kolasinac is great offensively but not too great defensively (unlike Tierney) and we don’t really have any exciting left-backs in the academy.

How much I want it to happen: 8/10 – I think he will really help us defensively which is great because we weren’t too great at that last season.

How much I think it will happen: 8/10 – I’m not 100% sure because apparently Napoli are interested in him as well.

William Saliba – He is a French defender who currently plays for Saint-Étienne. I know almost nothing about this guy but apparently he is the future of football! He is only 18 but he made 19 appearances for the senior side last season (16 being in Ligue 1).

How much I want it to happen: 5/10 – I’m not too keen on him because he will cost us about £30 million but we will have to loan him back next season which I think is ridiculous seeing as we need a defender now.

How much I think it will happen: 8/10 – We are really keen on him so it will probably happen.

Ryan Fraser – He is a Scottish winger who currently plays for Bournemouth. He is a pretty good player who I have seen play against us a few times. He is pretty small and his low centre of gravity means that he is an excellent dribbler and mover of the ball. He is 25 years old and a starter for club and country.

How much I want it to happen: 4/10 – At this point I think he is clearly second choice to Zaha and also we are getting Reiss Nelson back so I don’t think we need him.

How much I think it will happen: 8/10 – We probably won’t get Zaha because he is pretty expensive and we are clearly quite interested in Fraser so it will probably happen.

Malcolm – He is a Brazilian winger who currently plays for Barcelona. Last year we were really interested in signing him from Bordeaux and only just missed out to Barcelona. After a rough season, though, Barcelona are looking to sell him. He is clearly an excellent player if Barcelona bought him but he might struggle at fitting into the Premier League. My suggestion is that we get him on loan.

How much I want it to happen: 10/10 – If we get him on loan I will be really happy because he is cheap and a really good player. Neymar’s transfer decision plays a part in this too.

How much I think it will happen: 6/10 – There has been a lot of talk that Neymar is going to Real Madrid meaning Barca will still need someone in that position.

Lucas Vazquez – He is a Spanish winger who currently plays for Real Madrid. I know almost nothing about him, except I have heard that he is pretty good. Real reportedly want around £30 million for him.

How much I want it to happen: 4/10 – I wouldn’t mind him coming but he is pretty expensive for someone I haven’t heard of.

How much I think it will happen: 5/10 – Bayern Munich are also interested in him and they are probably the more attractive club at the moment.

THESE ARE THE VIDEOS FOR THE NEW KIT – ENJOY!

Since September 27th 2018 a lot has happened in the football world. I will start right back from after the 2-0 win over Everton. So we have made it through to the Round of 16 in the Europa League! We beat Qarabag, Sporting Lisbon and Vorslka Poltva in the group stages, then BATE Borisov in the Round of 32. For the Round of 16 we were drawn against Rennes, who are a French team and, unfortunately, we lost the first leg 3-1. On the 15th of March, we will be playing them again and we need to beat them at least 2-0.  In the EFL cup, we made it through to the quarter-finals before being knocked out by Sp*rs 2-0. Since the Everton game, we have made a tremendous improvement under new boss Unai Emery in the Premier League: we beat Fulham 5-1, beat Sp*rs 4-2 (that one was really satisfying) and beat Chelsea 2-0! At times we haven’t been too convincing either, though. We lost 5-1 to Liverpool, 3-1 to Manchester City and 3-1 to Manchester United. On the bright side, though, during the January transfer window Unai Emery signed a new player! He signed former Barcelona player Denis Suarez on a season-long loan!

Turning to Arsenal-Manchester United, then: earlier in the season we drew 2-2 with them in the Premier League and they knocked us out of the FA Cup in the 4th round with a 3-1 victory. We were looking for the opportunity to go fourth after Sp*rs were beaten 2-1 by Southampton! We started with a very positive lineup which included Lacazette, Aubameyang, Ozil and Ramsey (who is sadly moving to Juventus in the summer). If Manchester United won they would go into third place which would be terrible for us. So this really was a classic six-point game.

After a very good first few minutes in which Arsenal threw everything we had at them, in the twelfth minute Lacazette passed to Xhaka, who hit a spinning ball which completely confused David De Gea and ended up in the back of the net! We had scored after only twelve minutes and now we had to hold on to our lead which would be difficult.

After half-time, Manchester United came out with a lot of intensity and obviously a huge desire to win. We had played better in the first half, but now United were taking the front seat and really pressurizing us. In the 68th minute, we had a rare breakthrough. Lacazette got into the box, then United’s Fred stepped inside of him and tripped him. It was a penalty!!! Something really nice then happened. Because in the Sp*rs game Aubameyang had missed a penalty in the final minute and hadn’t scored in seven games, his confidence was really low. Lacazette, being a good friend of Aubameyang’s immediately got up and gave the ball to Aubameyang. What is really nice also is that Lacazette is much better at taking penalties than Aubameyang. In his career he has taken 31 penalties and scored 26! So the likelihood that Lacazette would score was higher then Aubameyang’s but he still gave the ball to him! A minute later Aubameyang coolly slotted the ball down the middle for our second goal!

We won and very surprisingly, too, because no one expected us to win. A website which I use sometimes has a poll where you can predict the winner of games, 326,660 people predicted the score and 71% of them said Manchester United would beat us (WRONG!), 5% said it would be a draw (WRONG!) and only 24% said Arsenal would win! Our next game is against Rennes and hopefully we can beat them and progress to the next round of the Europa League. After that, we are flying off to Dubai to play a friendly match against Al-Nasr Dubai SC. And after that, we have a Premier League game against Newcastle.

MAN OF THE MATCH

Sead Kolasinac

PLAYER RATINGS (STARTING ELEVEN)

Bernd Leno: 8

Sokratis Papastathopoulos: 8

Laurent Koscielny: 8

Nacho Monreal: 7

Ainsley Maitland-Niles: 7

Aaron Ramsey: 8

Granit Xhaka: 9

Sead Kolasinac: 10

Mesut Ozil: 7

Alexandre Lacazette: 9

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: 9