After several draws, we were hoping for a win against in-form Crystal Palace. It was the last game of the year but also Arsene Wenger’s 810th game in charge of Arsenal, which was equal to Alex Ferguson’s record of matches as Manchester United manager.

Twenty-five minutes into the game, we were flying. Lacazette had a clear shot on goal which was unfortunately saved by the Crystal Palace goalkeeper, Julian Speroni, who palmed the ball right to Mustafi who volleyed it past Speroni and into the goal! We were 1-0 up because of Mustafi who shot the ball like a centre-forward!

Twenty-five minutes later, in the 50th minute, Wilfred Zaha of Crystal Palace started sprinting down the flank. He crossed the ball into the box straight to Andros Townsend who tapped it into the goal! They were level within the first five minutes of the second half.

In the 62nd minute, Chambers crossed the ball into the box. Lacazette leaped really high to beat a defender to a header. It fell to Sanchez who smashed the ball in from 12 yards! We were back in the lead.

Exactly four minutes later, Wilshere did a very long ball from the halfway line which dropped perfectly for Sanchez, who took an amazing first touch. He was 1-on-1 with Speroni, so he chipped the goalkeeper and the ball rolled into the goal! 3-1!

In the 74th minute, we replaced Lacazette with Coquelin and twelve minutes after that Xhaka was replaced by Maitland-Niles.

Two minutes after the Xhaka/Maitland-Niles substitution (in the 88th minute), Townsend took a corner which fell to James Tomkins, who headed the ball in to make the score 3-2!

That was the last goal of the game. We had won on Wenger’s 810th game in charge of Arsenal. These are his stats: 486 wins, 198 draws, and 145 losses (which is a lot as he has been Arsenal manager for 21 years!). Our next game is Wenger’s record-breaking 811th game for Arsenal, so hopefully it will end well!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

MAN OF THE MATCH

Alexis Sanchez

PLAYER RATINGS (STARTING ELEVEN)

Petr Cech: 7

Callum Chambers: 7 

Shkodran Mustafi: 8

Laurent Koscielny: 6

Hector Bellerin: 7

Jack Wilshere: 9

Granit Xhaka: 7

Sead Kolasinac: 7

Alexis Sanchez: 10

Mesut Ozil: 8

Alexandre Lacazette: 7

After a crazy spell of games in the Premier League where we were drawing games against teams we should have been beating, such as our 1-1 draw with Southampton and our nil-all draw with West Ham, we came into this game feeling a bit uneasy. But we were at home, which was a positive as we have only lost at home once this season.

Twenty-six minutes into the game, Mohamed Salah had a cross deflected off Koscielny and it fell to Philippe Coutinho, who headed it over Cech and into the goal! 1-0 to Liverpool. It was not looking good for us.

At halftime, things went from bad to worse as Monreal was substituted off with an ankle injury and replaced by Mustafi.

Six minutes into the second half, Mohamed Salah ran forward and shot at goal and unluckily for us (but luckily for Liverpool) it deflected off Mustafi, which took the ball past Cech! 2-0 to Liverpool, and at that stage it looked impossible for us to get our hands on any points at all.

Exactly two minutes later we counter-attacked and Bellerin crossed the ball into the box, where Sanchez was waiting to head the ball into the goal! We had scored within two minutes of Liverpool doubling their lead!

Then three minutes later Xhaka got the ball outside the box. He shot the ball and it smashed into Simon Mignolet’s arm, but because of the force of the shot, Mignolet didn’t manage to save it and it bounced into the net. 2-2! We were level and we had done it within three minutes!

Five minutes after we scored our first goal, Liverpool lost the ball to Ozil who started running. He passed it to Lacazette who returned it with a great backheel, and Ozil chipped the ball over Mignolet and into the goal! It was amazing. Within the space of just five minutes we had scored three goals and turned the game around. We were winning 3-2!

In the seventy-first minute, however, Roberto Firmino shot the ball. It hit Cech and bounced into the goal! Liverpool had equalized, and there was such a short amount of time left to play that it basically blew our chance of winning the game.

Six minutes later Iwobi was substituted and replaced by Welbeck.

In the eighty-third minute, Philippe Coutinho was taken off and replaced by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who used to be an Arsenal player so he was booed by all the Arsenal fans because of his departure.

Two minutes before fulltime, Sanchez was replaced by Walcott and that was the last interesting thing that happened in the game.

Unfortunately, we didn’t beat Liverpool because if we did it would have put us ahead of Liverpool and into fourth place. We were one of the first teams to play this weekend, so if Burnley win against Sp*rs then they will be ahead of us by a point and tied with Liverpool. And if Sp*rs win, they will be ahead of us on goal difference. But I can’t argue with a draw because Liverpool are a very strong side and at least we didn’t lose.

MAN OF THE MATCH

Mesut Ozil

PLAYER RATINGS (STARTING ELEVEN)

Petr Cech: 8

Hector Bellerin: 7

Nacho Monreal: N/A (Because he was substituted off too early)

Laurent Koscielny: 7

Ainsley Maitland-Niles: 7

Jack Wilshere: 7

Granit Xhaka: 7

Alexis Sanchez: 8

Mesut Ozil: 10

Alex Iwobi: 6

Alexandre Lacazette: 7

Today was the North London Derby, our biggest game of the season (derby-wise). We had to win as we were sixth place tied on points with Burnley and Liverpool. As for Sp*rs (whose name will have to be censored), they were doing better than us, sitting in third place tied on points with second-place Manchester United. There were two very good things. One, Sanchez, Ozil and Lacazette were all starting together; and two, we haven’t lost at the Emirates in ten games!

The first thirty-six minutes of the game were full of attempts on goal, but we only made the breakthrough when Sanchez won us a free kick, which Ozil floated into the box where Mustafi was in the right place to head it into the top corner! Arsenal 1, Sp*rs 0!

Five minutes later, Bellerin had the ball just outside the Sp*rs penalty box. He slipped the ball down the field in the direction of the corner flag, but Lacazette saved it from going out. He crossed to Sanchez who took a brilliant touch, which I honestly thought was going to go out, but he kept it in, then smashed it into the roof of the net! We were winning 2-0, and a good thing was that Sanchez (after all the speculation that he was going to Manchester City) pounded his chest on the side with the Arsenal badge. By that point it was pretty much pouring with rain, which was good as we could do more slide tackles and we wanted to park the bus.

At half time we were 2-0 up, which was huge as we haven’t won a North London Derby in three and a half years!

We stayed back for pretty much the rest of the game, and to show we really were switching to defensive mode we substituted Lacazette and replaced him with Coquelin (who is a defensive midfielder), and we also replaced Ozil with Iwobi. This clearly worked as Sp*rs weren’t able to find a way through, and the final score was 2-0.

We had won the North London Derby! We now have twenty-two points, which unfortunately means that we are still tied on points with Burnley and Liverpool, but we can go into our next game (against Burnley) confident of winning.

MAN OF THE MATCH

Mesut Ozil

PLAYER RATINGS (STARTING ELEVEN)

Petr Cech: 8

Nacho Monreal: 6

Shkodran Mustafi: 8

Laurent Koscielny: 7

Hector Bellerin: 7

Aaron Ramsey: 7

Granit Xhaka: 8

Sead Kolasinac: 8

Mesut Ozil: 10

Alexis Sanchez: 9

Alexandre Lacazette: 9

This game was our ninth Premier League game of the season and we definitely needed to win because Manchester City are five points ahead at the top of the table and if we lose in my opinion we will be way too far behind City. We have not had a very good season so far but neither have Everton who are hovering just above the relegation zone, so we needed to win.

Twelve minutes into the game we were looking very good. We had a lot of possession and we were close to scoring some goals. For some reason we were playing in our own half with Xhaka on the ball when Idrissa Gueye came in with a challenge which was totally a foul but the ref didn’t see it, so Gueye passed the ball to Wayne Rooney (the former Man Utd player). Rooney shot and the ball curled into the top corner of the Arsenal goal. One-nil to Everton within only twelve minutes.

With only five minutes to half time Sanchez picked up the ball around the halfway line, then dribbled down the pitch and cut back to Xhaka who blasted the ball from just outside the box. Jordan Pickford saved it but Monreal got to the ball before anyone. He shot and scored! One-one.

Thirteen minutes later Lacazette passed the ball to Sanchez, who dribbled forward and then crossed it into the centre, a beautiful cross, which connected with Ozil’s head and ended up in the goal! We have turned the game around and also it was Ozil’s first goal of the season!

Fifteen minutes later Xhaka had the ball in the middle of the pitch when Gueye challenged him and got a second yellow card! Now we are one goal up and one player up.

In the seventy-fourth minute Sanchez quickly passed the ball to Ozil. He ran down the flank and crossed the ball to Lacazette, who shot and scored! Three-one to us!

Two minutes later we substituted Lacazette off and replaced him with Jack Wilshere, which was surprising because Lacazette had just scored.

Six minutes after that we substituted Ozil off and replaced him with Coquelin.

In the ninetieth minute Wilshere passed the ball to Ramsey who had an open goal because Everton were on the back foot. He smashed the ball into the goal. Four-one!

Craig Pawson (the ref) added five minutes of additional time.

Three minutes into additional time Monreal passed the ball back to Cech who tried to clear the ball, but Oumar Niasse jumped in front of the ball, blocked it and then shot. It was four-two.

In the final minute of extra time Sanchez ran down the side of the box then shot the other way. What a goal!!! And also it was the last kick of the game! Final score: Arsenal 5 Everton 2.

Hopefully we can carry on playing with this ruthless mentality so maybe we can break free of Chelsea who are equal with us on points (16) and goals scored (17), but they are above us in the table because we have let in 12 goals this season whereas Chelsea have let in 10.

MAN OF THE MATCH

Alexis Sanchez

PLAYER RATINGS (STARTING ELEVEN)

Petr Cech: 7

Laurent Kocielny: 7

Per Mertesacker: 7

Nacho Monreal: 9

Hector Bellerin: 7

Aaron Ramsey: 7

Granit Xhaka: 6

Sead Kolasinac: 7

Mesut Ozil: 9

Alexis Sanchez: 10

Alexandre Lacazette: 8

If we win this game against newly promoted side Brighton & Hove Albion, it will be our fourth win of the season and it is also 21 years to the day since Wenger started managing Arsenal! So we need to win.

The first thing that happened in the game was after we kicked off we attacked and Lacazette smashed the ball from thirty yards out and it hit the post! So it was close to being 1-0 within two minutes!

In the sixteenth minute Xhaka took a free kick. Lots of shots flew at the Brighton goal but Mathew Ryan kept saving the ball, until finally Monreal shot and it went in! 1-0.

In the twenty-second minute Solly March took a free kick and it hit the post! I was nervous. What if they could come back?

Nineteen minutes later Brighton were attacking in our box when they made a mistake so Sanchez started sprinting forward. Then he passed it to Ramsey who shot, but Mathew Ryan made a good save to deny him.

In the fifty-sixth minute we were in control of the ball around their penalty box and passing freely, when Sanchez got the ball with his back towards goal. He backheeled the ball to Iwobi, who smashed it past Mathew Ryan in the Brighton goal. 2-0!

In the seventieth minute we made a double substitution. Giroud came on for Lacazette (who has scored in our last three home games) and Walcott replaced Iwobi. Then twelve minutes later Elneny came on for Xhaka.

We won, which is a great thing  because we are level on points now with Chelsea! If I needed to say something bad about the game it would be (1) that we didn’t win by more goals and (2) that Lacazette didn’t get his fourth goal in four home games. Hopefully we can carry on this good form, starting with our next game which is against Watford in two weeks’ time.

MAN OF THE MATCH

Alexis Sanchez

PLAYER RATINGS (STARTING ELEVEN)

Petr Cech: 8

Rob Holding: 7

Shkodran Mustafi: 7

Nacho Monreal: 9

Hector Bellerin: 8

Aaron Ramsey: 8

Granit Xhaka: 8

Sead Kolasinac: 7

Alex Iwobi: 7

Alexis Sanchez: 10

Alexandre Lacazette: 8

The transfer window has closed and the new season has started and as usual we are playing badly at the beginning of the season. First we narrowly beat Leicester 4-3, then we lost to Stoke City 1-0 and then finally the most recent game was a 4-0 loss to Liverpool.

This year’s transfer window has not been that succesful. Of course we have bought Alexandre Lacazette and Sead Kolasinic, who are both good players, but two players are not enough. These are some players that had lots of rumors circulating around them:

Thomas Lemar

He is a 21-year-old Frenchman who plays for a French team called Monaco. Arsene Wenger must really like him because he said he would only sell Alexis Sanchez if we get Lemar, but he didn’t want to come to us so we got to keep Sanchez!

Kylian Mbappé

He is an 18-year-old French player who was a Monaco player. We were very interested in Mbappé because he is very young, skillful and fast. We were about to buy him but PSG (another French team) arranged a loan deal with Monaco. If he moves permanently next year, they will pay €180 million, which would make Mbappé the second most expensive player in the world, and he is only 18!

Alexis Sanchez

He is a 28-year-old Chilean who plays for us. Sanchez wanted to leave us for either Barcelona or Manchester City. Barcelona eventually lost interest, but Manchester City did not give up and Sanchez wanted to go there. Sanchez really thought he was going because there was even a picture that went viral of Sanchez wearing a City shirt, but on the final day Arsene Wenger decided that he would only sell Sanchez if we could get Lemar. But he didn’t want to come so we now have a very angry Sanchez on our hands.

Shkodran Mustafi

He is a 25-year-old German player who plays for us. We bought him last year, but Wenger has already decided to sell him because he doesn’t like him. Inter Milan (an Italian team) was interested in buying him, but for some reason he didn’t end up going, so he’s still an Arsenal player.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

He is a 24-year-old who is from England and used to play for us. He is really fast, energetic and creative and a great player. Chelsea and Liverpool both wanted him, but Liverpool were going to allow him to play in his preferred position, so he decided to go there.

We are currently 16th place in the table and it has been pretty disappointing so far, so I think we should sack Wenger. It’s not likely to happen, though, and if he stays, I think we’re probably going to finish in 10th place.

Today is the first day of the Premier League season and we are confident because just a few days ago we won the Community Shield against Chelsea on penalties, so hopefully we will have a good game. Another good thing is that we have bought two players, Sead Kolasinic and Alexandre Lacazette. Two might not sound like a lot, but from pre-season what I’ve seen so far has been good.

Only two minutes into the game Hector Bellerin passed to Mohamed Elneny, who crossed to Alexandre Lacazette (one of our new signings) who headed the ball into the goal. 1-0! It only took Lacazette 83 minutes to score his first goal for the club against Sydney FC, but that was a friendly. So this was his first competitive goal for us. Two minutes later Harry Maguire of Leicester kept the ball in play with his head, but Petr Cech made the mistake of coming out, so Shinji Okazaki got the ball and headed it in! They had equalised. Granit Xhaka is a really good player but today just wasn’t his day because he kept on giving the ball away and in this case in the 29th minute he passed the ball to Marc Albrighton who crossed it to Jamie Vardy who smashed it in! Leicester had come from behind to lead 2-1. In the 47th minute Lacazette fended off lots of defenders, then he passed to Sead Kolasinic (our other new signing) who very unselfishly passed to Danny Welbeck, who had an open goal in front of him, and of course he scored. We were level again. 2-2. Nine minutes later Leicester won a corner which was taken by Riyad Mahrez. He crossed it and Jamie Vardy was right where he needed to be to get a good header. They were back in front. 3-2 to Leicester.

In the 66th minute we made our three substitutions: Aaron Ramsey came on for Mohamed Elneny, Olivier Giroud came on for Rob Holding, and finally Theo Walcott came on for Danny Welbeck. Sixteen minutes after the substitutions were made, Xhaka passed a long ball to Aaron Ramsey, who got the ball and ran down the side of the box then smashed it past Kasper Schmeichel. We were level with only seven minutes left! Three minutes later we won a corner, which was taken by Xhaka. The ball went to Giroud who headed it in! We were back in the lead! Ten minutes later (because there were 5 minutes of additional time) the game finished. Arsene Wenger’s substitutions had really helped.

So we have won the first game of the Premier League season and only AFC Bournemouth can finish the weekend above us (if they get three points from their game) because the table is sorted by alphabetical order. Hopefully this is a good sign and we can do well this season.

MAN OF THE MATCH

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

PLAYER RATINGS (STARTING ELEVEN)

Petr Cech: 7

Sead Kolasinic: 8

Rob Holding: 6

Nacho Monreal: 7

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain: 10

Mohamed Elneny: 7

Granit Xhaka: 6

Hector Bellerin: 9

Mesut Özil: 8

Danny Welbeck: 7

Alexandre Lacazette: 8

It is pre-season, which is when all the teams play friendlies against teams from all around the world. First we went to Australia where we beat Sydney FC 2-0 and Western Sydney Wanderers 3-1. Then we went to China where we drew with Bayern Munich 1-1, but then beat them 3-2 on penalties, and then we faced Chelsea in the game I’m describing here. We have two new players, Alexandre Lacazette and Sead Kolasinac, so that might be a plus for our team. Chelsea started very strongly. It wasn’t even one minute into the game and they had already won two corners so it didn’t look good for us. The first exciting moment was twenty-five minutes into the game. Pedro ran into the box to get the ball but Ospina (our goalkeeper) also wanted the ball. They weren’t watching where they were going and Pedro ended up getting a fist in the face. It must have been pretty bad because Pedro is a grown man and he was crying and couldn’t continue playing.

A little while later,  in the 35th minute, Chelsea had a corner which went to Michy Batshuayi who scored, but luckily he was offside. Five minutes later Chelsea scored for real. Willian shot from long-range and it went in off the post. 1-0! Only one minute later Batshuayi got the ball and shot from the same position Willian had been in when he scored. Chelsea were 2-0 up! Five minutes into the second half, Chelsea scored one of the most beautiful goals I’ve ever seen. This is how it went: Cesc Fabregas passed a really long pass which Marcos Alonso got. He started down the flank. Oxlade-Chamberlain tried to stop him but he cleverly sent Chamberlain to the floor. Then he passed to Batshuayi who smashed the ball into the top corner for his second goal of the night. 3-0 to Chelsea! The thing I like about friendlies is that you can make as many substitutions as you want, and we substituted ten of our eleven players. The final score was 3-0 to Chelsea.

The only good thing about this game is that this might show Arsene Wenger that buying just two players is not enough to win us the title. So hopefully he will make some more changes and then we will be ready for next season.

MAN OF THE MATCH

Olivier Giroud: 10 * (Came on in the second half)

PLAYER RATINGS (STARTING ELEVEN)

David Ospina: 9

Ainsley Maitland-Niles: 7

Per Mertesacker: 6

Nacho Monreal: 8

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain: 7

Aaron Ramsey: 8

Granit Xhaka: 8

Cohen Bramall: 6

Mesut Özil: 9

Alex Iwobi: 7

Alexandre Lacazette: 7

This game is the FA Cup final and the last game we are going to play this season. We need to win because we haven’t won a trophy this year and if we win then Arsene Wenger will be the most succesful manager to manage a team that has participated in the FA Cup with seven FA Cup wins.

Five minutes into the game, Alexis Sanchez chested the ball into the air, ran around everyone and smashed the ball in. But all the Chelsea players and fans were protesting against the goal because some of them believed that instead of chesting the ball he had used his hand, some thought Sanchez was offside, and some thought that Aaron Ramsey interfered with play because he was standing next to the ball and everyone thought he was going to shoot, but luckily the referee made the right decision and allowed the goal to stand. One-nil!

In the sixty-eighth minute Victor Moses was attacking. He got into the box but then Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain tried to get the ball. Just as he was about to tackle Moses, though, Moses dived and he got a yellow card. But the thing was that in the first half he had got a yellow card too, so he got a red card, which meant that we were up by one goal and one player.

In the seventy-seventh minute Costa got the ball. He chested the ball down amazingly and smashed it in. One-one! The funny thing is that Costa could have come to us, but instead we bought Lucas Perez and Danny Welbeck for the same amount of money, and yet we never play Perez who is actually quite a good player. Before this I was quite confident we would win, but I was now worried that Chelsea might win.

In the same minute Costa scored, we made a substitution. Danny Welbeck went off and Olivier Giroud came on.

Two minutes later, Giroud crossed the ball into the box and Aaron Ramsey headed the ball in. Goal! Ramsey had now scored two goals in two games, and it would be the second time that Ramsey has scored the winning goal in an FA Cup final. The last time he did it was in 2014, when we bet Hull City three-two.

Then we made two substitutions: Chamberlain was replaced by Francis Coquelin (who got a yellow card with his first touch of the ball), and Mohamed Elneny came on for Sanchez.

It was over. We had won! We are the champions of the FA Cup for the third time in four years and the seventh time in twenty years. So Arsene Wenger has broken a record. He is the first manager to win the FA Cup seven times with one club. The sad thing is that this might be the last game, in an Arsenal shirt, for Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Özil and Hector Bellerin. But hopefully after this game, because of our victory, they will want to stay.

MAN OF THE MATCH

Per Mertesacker

PLAYER RATINGS (STARTING ELEVEN)

David Ospina: 9

Rob Holding: 8

Per Mertesacker: 10

Nacho Monreal: 9

Hector Bellerin: 9

Aaron Ramsey: 9

Granit Xhaka: 8

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain: 8

Mesut Özil: 8

Alexis Sanchez: 9

Danny Welbeck: 7

It has been a tough season this year, full of up and downs. Here is a timeline of how I think the season went. At the start of the season we played pretty well, apart from our first two games which we lost and drew. Then closer to the middle of the season we were still playing pretty well, but then, when there was only about two fifths of the season left (after we lost to Watford), we started to play quite badly, losing to most of the big teams such as Chelsea and Liverpool. But luckily closer to the last six games we started getting our rhythm back, although it was too late to get a top four finish.

For the Champions League, we got through the group stages quite easily (apart from the Paris games), but when we got to the last sixteen we lost to Bayern Munich 10-2 on aggregate (5-1 in each of the legs)! So then we were out of the Champions League again.

In the Capital One Cup we got to play only two games before we were knocked out. Our first game was against Reading which we won 2-0. Then we faced Nottingham Forest. We won that game 4-0. Then finally we played Southampton and surprisingly we lost that 2-0. And simple as that we were out of yet another competition.

Then there is the FA Cup, which we breezed through, but we are still to play the final against Chelsea who are going to play their hardest because they want to get the double, which means winning two trophies in one season (Chelsea have already won the Premier League).

These are some people who we need to keep this summer, but their deals have run out:

• Alexis Sanchez is a very good, hard-working player. He has been frustrated throughout the season. Wanted by Chelsea.
• Mesut Ozil is a very skillful player who is excellent at assisting. His big eyes help him see players who are free. Wanted by Real Madrid.
• Hector Bellerin, a very young player, is very fast. He is one of the fastest players in Arsenal history. He is so fast that Usain Bolt challenged him to a 100 meter race! Wanted by Barcelona.

Then there’s our manager to consider. Arsene Wenger has been our manager for twenty years and in that time he has won three Premier League titles, six FA Cups and six Community Shields. He has been a good manager but it is time for a change.

These are some players/managers/positions we need to improve/buy:

• For goalkeepers, I think we don’t need any because we have three good goalkeepers, including Petr Cech, David Ospina and Emiliano Martinez.
• For defenders, we need one. I think that because we have bought Sead Kolasinac, who is our first buy this summer.
• For midfielders, we need one or two attacking midfielders but no defensive midfielders because we have more than enough.
• For strikers, I think we don’t need any because we usually play with one striker and we have more than two strikers so we are okay.
• And last but not least, managers. We need a new manager to replace Wenger. We could get Thomas Tuchel or Massimiliano Allegri, who are both very good managers and there are rumours that they might want to join us. I would be happy to have them.