Hello, My name is Conrad Scott and this is a little bit about me!

I am a ten year old Singaporean/Kiwi who loves food (especially potato). I also love football and I write a blog about my favorite team, Arsenal called younggunnerblog .

I live in Singapore with my family which consists of my Dad, my Mum, my younger brother and my two twin sisters. Anyway I hope you like my blog!

BTW: Don’t worry not all of the food is going to be as unhealthy as the banner implies.

In our sixth game of this Premier League season, we were up against an Everton side who were getting their star player Richarlison back from suspension and had pretty much their best team available to play. Another one of their star players is former Gunner Theo Walcott, who has recently been in good form for the Merseysiders.

The first half wasn’t very interesting, but one notable thing did happen when Sokratis was forced into a challenge on Walcott. He hurt himself in the process, so he had to be replaced by Rob Holding in the thirty-eighth minute.

Twelve minutes after the break, Torreira (who was making his first EPL start) did well to shield the ball from an Everton player. He passed to Ramsey who was in the box. Ramsey passed back out to Lacazette, who smashed the ball off the cross bar and in for our first goal! Lacazette was the first player to have scored two goals for us this season.

Only three minutes later, Lacazette flicked the ball through to Ozil, who passed it to Ramsey. He slipped but still managed to rabona the ball to Aubameyang, who slammed it past Jordan Pickford for our second goal in three minutes!

Between the sixty-eighth and eightieth minute, we made two substitutions. Iwobi came on in place of Aubameyang and Welbeck came on for Ramsey. That was all that happened before the final whistle blew.

We had won our fifth game in a row, including our four-two win over Vorslka Poltava in the Europa League! Our next game is a third-round clash in the Carabao Cup against Championship high-fliers Brentford, and on Saturday we play Watford in the Premier League.

MAN OF THE MATCH

Lucas Torreira

PLAYER RATINGS (STARTING ELEVEN)

Petr Cech: 9

Hector Bellerin: 8

Shkodran Mustafi: 5

Sokratis Papastathopoulos: 8

Nacho Monreal: 7

Lucas Torreira: 10

Granit Xhaka: 7

Mesut Ozil: 8

Aaron Ramsey: 7

Alexandre Lacazette: 9

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: 8

Off the back of two promising wins against Cardiff and West Ham, we headed up to St James’ Park to play Newcastle in our fifth game of the season. Newcastle were in eighteenth place with only one point! Even though the rumors suggested that our new signings Leno and Torreira would start, we instead started with Cech and Guendouzi.

The first half was not very interesting. We had more possession but surprisingly all the good chances went Newcastle’s way. This stat proves that – Newcastle had seven corners and we only had one in the first half. Luckily, though, it ended goalless.

At half time, we substituted Guendouzi off and brought on Torreira in his place. Four minutes after the restart, Federico Fernandez fouled Aubameyang on the edge of the box. Xhaka and Torreira stepped up. Torreira dummied, then Xhaka curled it beautifully into the top corner! We had got the breakthrough and it was an absolute beauty by the heavily criticized Xhaka.

In the fifty-eighth minute, Xhaka broke down the wing in an amazing run. He then crossed the ball into the box directly to Lacazette who thumped the ball at the goal. The ball hit a defender’s leg, and went straight to Ozil, who side-footed it past Dúbravka for our second goal! This game was Ozil’s two-hundredth game for Arsenal and it is great that he marked it with a goal.

The next twenty-two minutes were pretty good as we had a few chances and nearly all of the possession. In that time, we also made two substitutions – Aubameyang was replaced by Mkhitaryan, and Welbeck came on for Ramsey.

One minute into the five minutes of additional time, Yoshinori Muto (who had just come on) raced down the flank then crossed the ball back to Ciaran Clark, who headed it into the ground and over Cech into the goal! They had scored, which meant that we still don’t have a clean sheet this season.

Four minutes after Clark’s goal, the final whistle blew following a very nervy few minutes for Arsenal fans. That win meant that we were now tied with Spurs and Manchester United on nine points! Our next game is on the twenty-first against Vorslka Poltava in our first game of this season’s Europa League campaign.

MAN OF THE MATCH

Granit Xhaka

PLAYER RATINGS (STARTING ELEVEN)

Petr Cech: 5

Hector Bellerin: 8

Shkodran Mustafi: 6

Sokratis Papastathopoulos: 9

Nacho Monreal: 7

Matteo Guendouzi: 8

Granit Xhaka: 10

Mesut Ozil: 7

Aaron Ramsey: 7

Alexandre Lacazette: 8

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: 8

Off the back of a good win against West Ham, we were going to play a Cardiff side who still were without a goal. Our amazing Welshman, Aaron Ramsey, was playing against his former team. He was their youngest ever starter at the age of only sixteen! One good thing about this game was that Ozil, Aubameyang and Lacazette were all starting for the first time together.

The first few minutes were very nervy. As Emery’s style of play is to pass from the back, it usually has to start with the goalkeeper, and Cech is really not good with his feet. One incident that happened was that Cech attempted to play a straight pass to Guendouzi, but Harry Arter intercepted the pass and blasted just high of the goal. In the eleventh minute, though, Xhaka whipped a corner in, Mustafi beat Bruno Ecuele Manga then thumped the ball past Neil Etheridge for the breakthrough. The great thing about that goal was that it was scored past Etheridge who is in spectacular form with a record-equalling three penalty saves in as many games!

For the rest of the first half, Arsenal were pretty much in control, as the stats showed    (85% possession), but in the final minute of additional time, Xhaka sprayed a poor pass across the field. Joe Bennett intercepted the ball then passed it wide to Junior Hoilett. Hoilett crossed the ball in towards Víctor Camarasa, who controlled it, spun around and then blasted past Cech for the equalizer.

Twenty-two minutes into the second half, we broke forward through Ozil. He passed to Lacazette, who performed a beautiful backheel to Aubameyang. He curled the ball into the far corner for our second goal! That goal involved Ozil, Lacazette and Aubameyang and I am a big fan of all them so I think that they should all should start together a lot more.

In the seventieth minute, Cardiff won a free kick. It was played out to Sean Morrison, who headed the ball in towards Danny Ward. He dove at the ball and bulleted the ball in off the post! They had equalized again, and it was Danny Ward’s first goal in the Premier League.

With nine minutes to go before full time, however, Torreira slipped the ball through Cardiff’s defence to an on-side Lacazette, who cracked the ball in for the winner!

The win launched us up to ninth place in the table, whereas it left Cardiff in sixteenth place. Our next game is against Newcastle who are sitting in the relegation zone alongside Burnley and West Ham. Hopefully we can do well against them, but even though they aren’t sitting pretty their loss against Manchester City was cruel and the DeAndre Yedlin goal was pretty epic.

MAN OF THE MATCH

Alexandre Lacazette

PLAYER RATINGS (STARTING ELEVEN)

Petr Cech: 2

Hector Bellerin: 8

Shkodran Mustafi: 6

Sokratis Papastathopoulos: 6

Nacho Monreal: 7

Matteo Guendouzi: 8

Granit Xhaka: 6

Mesut Ozil: 7

Aaron Ramsey: 7

Alexandre Lacazette: 10

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: 8½

Following a very disappointing start to the season in which we lost to both Manchester City and Chelsea, in the third game of the season we were looking to get a win over a West Ham side who have signed big during the transfer window. During the window, they signed two of our players, Jack Wilshere and Lucas Perez, but still they were the bottom of the table. Arsenal on the other hand were seventeenth in the table, which was barely any better than West Ham’s position. We were only above the three teams in the relegation zone on goal difference!

Twenty-five minutes into the game, Felipe Anderson and Marko Arnautović one-two’d the ball around a defender before Arnautović smashed the ball into the bottom corner from outside the box! It was one-nil to West Ham. Things were not looking good for Arsenal.

Five minutes after Arnautović’s goal, Bellerin broke forward and then crossed the ball into the box. Łukasz Fabiański (who also used to play for us) punched the ball clear of goal but it fell perfectly to Monreal who whacked it into the goal! We had equalised and it was the man who scored first last time we played West Ham scoring again.

Between the forty-sixth and fifty-sixth minute, we made two substitutions. Iwobi came on for Lacazette in the forty-sixth minute, and Guendouzi was replaced by Torreira in the fifty-sixth minute.

In the seventieth minute, one of our players chipped the ball forward, and Ramsey headed it toward Lacazette. He crossed it into the box, but instead of the ball going to any Arsenal players it hit Issa Diop’s chest and went in! We had turned the game around and were now ahead of them by a goal. Four minutes later, Aubameyang came off and was replaced by Welbeck.

Two minutes before the game ended, Bellerin sent a low cross to a really open Welbeck. He turned, then scooped it over Fabiański for our third goal, almost certainly winning the game for us.

On ninety-four minutes, the final whistle blew which indicated our first win of the season. We had launched ourselves from seventeenth in the table to eleventh! Hopefully we will continue to climb the table. Our next game is against Cardiff, who are currently three behind us in fourteenth place.

MAN OF THE MATCH

Hector Bellerin

PLAYER RATINGS (STARTING ELEVEN)

Petr Cech: 7

Hector Bellerin: 9

Shkodran Mustafi: 7

Sokratis Papastathopoulos: 7

Nacho Monreal: 7

Matteo Guendouzi: 8

Granit Xhaka: 8

Henrikh Mkhitaryan: 6½

Aaron Ramsey: 7

Alex Iwobi: 8

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: 8½

The ICC (International Champions Cup) is a competition where teams from all around the world go to different countries during their pre-season. Being an Arsenal supporter, it’s great that I live in Singapore because Arsenal have come here quite a lot recently and this year’s ICC will be my second time watching Arsenal live. In this year’s tournament, Arsenal are up against two giant teams: PSG and Atletico Madrid!  Unfortunately, the first game (against Atletico Madrid) didn’t exactly go to plan as we lost to the Spanish team on penalties. The next game was against PSG, who are Unai Emery’s former team. They were missing a few great players such as Kylian Mbappe and Neymar but they still had the likes of the legend himself Gianluigi Buffon and Adrien Rabiot among their ranks.

Thirteen minutes into the game, a beautiful ball was played to Aubameyang who chased, collected and slotted the ball into the PSG box, where Ozil easily tapped the ball past Buffon! We were ahead and after all the controversies involving Ozil, the German national team and the Turkish president, the fact that he came to Singapore was really good and now he had a goal to show for it.

Fifteen minutes after the restart, Kolasinac fouled Timothy Weah in the box after Weah used his pace to get the better of him. Weah went down and won a penalty! Christopher Nkunku took the penalty – he smashed the ball into the top corner as Leno dove the wrong way. PSG had equalised and they kind of deserved it because they had been playing some pretty good football.

Seven minutes later, Emile Smith Rowe crossed the ball in to the near post, Lacazette ran to the ball then flicked it past Buffon for our second goal of the game! Smith Rowe had been playing amazingly in Singapore. He scored a great goal against Atletico Madrid and now he had an assist.

In the seventy-first minute, we played our corner short. It was whisked out to the far corner, where Ramsey headed the ball back into the six-yard area. It was then headed about two more times before the ball found Lacazette’s head and Lacazette’s head found the back of the net! Lacazette had his second and for the first time in the game we had a two goal cushion.

With only three minutes of normal time to play We were awarded yet another corner. Nelson took it amazingly. From my angle it looked like it was hovering in the air as it was sent in directly to Holding’s head. Holding wacked the ball with his head past Sébastien Cibois (who had just come on in place of Gigi Buffon)! We now had a three goal advantage over PSG.

Four minutes of additional had already been played and in the final attack of the match Nelson gracefully turned then slipped the ball through the whole PSG defence and to Nketiah who easily curved the ball around the goalkeeper for our fourth goal and surely securing our win!

In the ICC we are in fourth place with four points and a plus-four goal difference. That means that we are still in contention for the trophy as all we need is for Juventus to lose their game, and we need to beat Chelsea in Dublin, and if that happens we will win the ICC Championship. I really enjoyed going to the game because I am so used to watching games on the TV, so seeing my idols actually in the flesh felt amazing. It was also really great to see Arsenal play so well live.

MAN OF THE MATCH

Matteo Guendouzi

PLAYER RATINGS (STARTING ELEVEN)

Bernd Leno: 8

Hector Bellerin: 7

Sokratis Papastathopoulos: 8

Shkodran Mustafi: 7

Sead Kolasinac: 6

Mohamed Elneny: 7

Matteo Guendouzi: 10

Henrikh Mkhitaryan: 7

Mesut Ozil: 8

Alex Iwobi: 7

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: 8½

Every four years, 32 countries from all over the world come together to compete for the prize which crowns them the champions of the world. This year’s competition was hosted by Russia and was definitely one of the most memorable tournaments to be played. Big guns such as Germany, Portugal, Spain and Brazil were knocked out in the earlier stages of the tournament, while teams such as Russia and Croatia made it all the way to the latter stages of the tournament! The big surprise of the World Cup has been Croatia who made it all the way to the finals! I am not only writing about this game because it is probably the most important football match to be played in the past four years but also because I am Singaporean/Kiwi, and neither of those teams made it to the finals (even though New Zealand only missed out on a place after they were beaten by Peru in the play-off). I love the French style of play and I like most of their players so I opted to support them in this year’s final.

The first big thing that happened was eighteen minutes into the game Marcelo Brozović fouled Antoine Greizmann outside of the box, which meant it was a free kick to France in a very promising position. During the tournament, Croatia’s defence has been amazing, conceding only five goals before this game (bar penalty shoot outs). The free kick was chipped into the box by Greizmann, and the ball did end up being headed by a Croatian player, but the problem was he headed the ball in the direction of his own goal and past his own goalkeeper! France had the lead. Mario Mandžukić had made history with that goal, being the first player ever to score an own goal in the World Cup final!

Ten minutes later, N’Golo Kanté conceded a free kick just outside of the French penalty area. Croatia played it out wide. Šime Vrsaljko headed it into the box, then Mandžukić headed it back to Ivan Perišić, who took a touch before curling the ball around Hugo Lloris and into the goal! Croatia had equalised as they have done three other times in this tournament!

In the thirty-sixth minute, France won a corner which Greizmann swung into the near post. Ivan Perišić attempted to clear the ball but missed it with his foot and instead handled it in the box! To start with, the referee wasn’t too certain whether it was a penalty or not and in the end he opted to check the newly installed VAR (Video Assistant Referee). After the check was finished he decided that it was a penalty! Many people say that it was the wrong decision, but in my opinion Nestor Pitana made the right decision. Two minutes later, Greizmann coolly dispatched the penalty past Danijel Subašić, who had already saved an impressive three penalties at this tournament. France were winning 2-1!

Twenty-one minutes later, Kylian Mbappe used his insane speed to get past a bunch of players before crossing the ball to Greizmann who had his back to goal. He did a few keepie-uppies before passing to Paul Pogba. His shot was blocked, and it came right back to him so he tried again (this time using his weaker left foot). He scooped the ball around Danijel Subašić and in for France’s third goal!

In the sixty-fifth minute, Lucas Hernández sprinted down the flank and cut the ball back to Kylian Mbappe, who drilled the ball towards the goal from outside of the box. The ball crashed into the net so hard it went all the way up to the top of the goal! France now had four goals, which is the amount of goals Kylian Mbappe has scored at this tournament. He is now tied with Romelu Lukaku, Denis Cheryshev, Cristiano Ronaldo and Greizmann in second place in the race for the Golden Boot. The race is currently being led by Harry Kane.

Four minutes later, Samuel Umtiti passed the ball back to Hugo Lloris who instead of clearing it first time, tried to nutmeg the oncoming Mandžukić. But unfortunately he kicked the ball off Mandžukić’s leg and into the French goal! Mandžukić had made up for his mistake at the other end of the pitch, though Croatia still had to score two goals if they wanted any chance of glory.

Following that goal came twenty-six intense minutes in which Croatia desperately tried to score but they just couldn’t do it. In the ninety-fifth minute, the game finished and France were officially crowned the champions of the world after they had failed to conquer Europe two years ago! Following that there was the award presentations. France of course won the gold, Croatia won the silver. Belgium beat England in the third place play-off so they had won the bronze. Mbappe won the FIFA Young Player Award, Luka Modric won the Golden Ball, Harry Kane won the Golden Boot and Thibaut Courtois won the Golden Glove.

Allez les Bleus!

MAN OF THE MATCH

Kylian Mbappe

PLAYER RATINGS (STARTING ELEVEN)

Hugo Lloris: 3

Benjamin Pavard: 7

Raphaël Varane: 8

Samuel Umtiti: 7

Lucas Hernández: 8

N’Golo Kanté: 7

Blaise Matuidi: 6

Paul Pogba: 8

Antoine Greizmann: 8

Olivier Giroud: 4

Kylian Mbappe: 10