The Gunners start afresh...

Pat Rice has made an early foray into the transfer market for Nigerian ace Ogenyi Onazi and Brazilian U20 captain Doria for Lazio and Botafogo respectively. Onazi costing an estimating £6m with £3.4 paid up front, and Doria an expected £10m.

Arsenal have suffered injuries in the central defensive midfield area to first team players Kwadwo Asamoah and Mikel Arteta, Onazi will provide cover and competition for the position and is tipped to be a potential long term replacement for Mikel Arteta. Rice's team has also suffered at centre back, with Thomas Vermaelen and Per Mertesacker playing inconsistently, and John Stones suffering up and down form at times, Doria will provide a new injection of young quality to play at the heart of Arsenal's defence.

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Doria is tipped to be Brazil's long term successor to Thiago Silva

Meanwhile the Gunners are rumoured to still be in the market for other players, most notably, Zidane-esque playmaker Paul Pogba of Juventus and Alex McCarthy of Reading.

November began rather poorly with a draw at Norwich, a team I never seem to get good performances against. We deserved a draw to be honest, Danny Ings bagging an opener but we never really dominated. We hosted Ajax at homme and I'm not sure why the performance was so poor. We were lucky to lose only 2-1, Ozil bagging our only goal. However we turned poor run around after no wins in 4 games with a victory at St Mary's against Southampton. A 4 goal blitz from Olivier Giroud in an absolute thriller won us the game, Southampton challenging us throughout and taking the lead 1-0 but we brought the game back. We extended the win with a victory against Swansea with Giroud and Wilshere getting on the scoresheet. Another game in Europe awaited and we had to host Schalke 04 at home, we pulled off a 1-0 victory again. Finally we had to round up November with a 2-0 win against Hull. November also featured two early transfers for Doria and Onazi, who will join in January.

We had a good start with a 3-1 win against Cardiff, Walcott getting two goals and Cazorla getting the third. However we had a very frustrating game against Newcastle. Tim Krul made countless numbers of amazing saves, and we ended up losing 2-1. We went on to draw with Celtic in the Champions League 2-2, but I was content with the result considering we were 2-0 down in seven minutes. However Giroud and Chamberlain got the goals to get us a point and help us finish top of the group. We then had a game against Man United,in which Walcott scored a double and led us to a comfortable 2-0 win. We replicated the win against Fulham; 2-0 once again and like the Celtic game, Giroud and Chamberlain scored. We then went away to Liverpool and lost 2-1, Ginter scoring an own goal, but Chamberlain once again getting a consolation goal, hitting some fine form in December. We rounded off December with a win against West Brom, Walcott and Cazorla scoring the two goals. Over the month we lost two and drew one, but still got three wins.

Doria and Onazi made their debuts against Spurs, Onazi coming off the bench, but Doria started the game. Giroud scored the only goal, it softened the loss because it was an absolutely stunning counter attack from Szczesny's counter attack. We signed Victor Wanyama for a £9m fee upfront, and over 48 months amounting to £20m. Wanyama was signed because of Asamoah's injury and Onazi not being a physical presence we were looking for in midfielder. We got a 1-0 win against West Ham and a 2-1 win against Stoke too. Doria was beginning to play very well alongside Mertesacker or Koscielny. After those wins, Giroud scored in the next three games consecutively, in a 3-1 win against Palace, a 2-1 win against a 2nd place Man City, who were level with us on goal difference (while we were at the top of the table). Walcott also scored to seal the game. The Palace game was the last of January's games, and transfer deadline day approached. I loaned out a few players, backup striker Danny Ings needed game time, so he went to Hull and other youngsters such as Sanogo and Miyaichi moved to Derby and Lorient respectively. To replace Ings, Quagliarella was loaned from Juventus, who we had been drawn against in the last 16 of the Champions League. Valencia's Vicente Guaita was also bought for £2.3m as I felt Nicholls and Fabianski were not capable of being a suitable backup, the main reason why Szcezsny has played every game this season.

February began with that win against City, which took us to the top of the table by three points. We continued our fine form with the 3-1 win over Sunderland faced Everton after. We dominated and played very well but couldn't turn our chances into goals, finishing 0-0. Credit goes to new signing Doria for a stunning performance in silencing 14 goal Romelu Lukaku. An FA Cup 5th round tie against Cardiff City ended up in a 3-0 win, probably one of the best all round performances from us all season. Free flowing clinical football, Quagliarella scoring two on his debut, and Gnabry scoring a 3rd with a man of the match performance. I gave different players a chance because we had Juventus in the midweek tie in which I planned to mirror their 5-3-2. I played the players who couldn't play wing back, couldn't play against them, or who were not going to start. Juventus was exciting, I was pleased with the performance as we created some decent chances, but Theo Walcott upfront was poor, he doesn't play well as a striker for us. We lost 1-0 but we attacked and they were lucky to score. We have the return leg at home, and I will play a 4-2-3-1 that time round. We finished February, with 4-1 win against Villa. Theo Walcott redeemed himself for the poor performance upfront against Juve, with a hattrick from the right wing against the Villains, getting man of the match. We are top of the league, in the FA Cup quarter finals, but 1-0 to Juventus on aggregate, we have work to do, but it's looking promising.