The final international break of the year is over. How good does that sound?

Real football returns tomorrow, and unlike many Premiership weekends, it is Saturday that looks the tastier of the days. Liverpool and City play each other at lunchtime, United face Everton in the evening, Chelsea are involved and we have a very tricky trip to Sunderland to negotiate.

Welcome to another edition of Groan in Brief, the weekly look at the world of football in bullet point form. Today, we tackle the Worst Handball Ever in History And Time Itself ™, and the curiosity of Egypt's continued absence from the grandest stage of international football.

'That' handball

Whenever the media decide to jump on a story, what transpires is the most unsightly of feeding frenzies, each reporter seeking to trump the last.

One thing about not blogging for a week is you can sit back and watch the hysterical reactions going on in the world of football without feeling like you have to dive in and add your voice. It has been one of those weeks.

First we had the curse of the international break rear its ugly head again, in the form of injuries to Van Persie and Gibbs.

Welcome to the first 'Groan in Brief', a look at recent events that may or may not have anything to do with Arsenal the focus of these pieces will be on any current football stories that I feel like commenting on. Expect the FA, FIFA, UEFA and Jamie Redknapp to be regular targets of ridicule.

The international break seems like a good time to start, given that there's no Arsenal news filtering through, at least until the matches themselves leave the whole squad crippled, so let's get on with it.

Wolves 1 (Craddock 89) Arsenal 4 (Zubar og 28, Craddock og 36, Fabregas 45, Arshavin 66)
(Premiership)

Moving house and blogging is a tricky combination. Phone companies tend to ensure that you haven't got a hope of getting online during the first few weeks in the new place, and trying to write anything meaningful from a mobile is nigh on impossible.

The 4-1 thumping of Alkmaar in midweek was an immensely satisfying affair, a triumph of footballing philosophy over the defensive nous of coaches such as Ronald Koeman, and yet another demonstration that this Arsenal team is serious about combining footballing beauty with tangible success.

But prior the the match, there was a definite sense of relaxation amongst the fans, as if the game really didn't matter, so assured was our progress regardless of the result.

Apologies all, I've been moving house today and cannot get near to doing a full preview of tonight's game, which starts in a matter of minutes. Suffice to say that a win is actually quite important given Chelsea's qualification last night (we play Chelsea after matchday 5, and they can concentrate entirely on that one), and I think we'll get it, 2-0.

Arsenal 3 (Van Persie 42, 60, Fabregas 43) Tottenham 0
(Premiership)

A victory that was as satisfying as it was ultimately comfortable guaranteed that the 'noughties' would be completed without a single Spurs victory over Arsenal in the league, a run now stretching to an impressive twenty games.

With Almunia frozen out, and Mannone beginning to show understandable signs of being a little out of his depth in the first team at this early stage of his career, the stage seemed set for Fabianski to return to the fray against Spurs this afternoon, especially after a decent showing against Liverpool in midweek.

Arsenal 2 (Merida 19, Bendtner 50) Liverpool 1 (Insua 26)
(Carling Cup)

A mix of experience and youth was enough to see off the challenge of Liverpool in an entertaining game, made all the more fun by the visitor's admirable attacking intent. In the end, we sneaked home in one of the most enjoyable games I've seen all season.

I remember when top clubs began blooding youngsters and squad players en masses in the League Cup it had always been a competition for a little rotation, but the criticism ran wild when the likes of us and United played entirely different teams from the one that ran out at the weekend.

These days, it is noticeable how different the media message is.

West Ham 2 (Cole 74, Diamanti 80) Arsenal 2 (Van Persie 16, Gallas 37)
(Premiership)

Perhaps we can excuse the players for thinking the game was won at half time. I certainly did. West Ham were toothless, gutless, and quite frankly, hopeless in the opening 45 minutes.

It's gearing up to be a very interesting Sunday afternoon of football, with Liverpool and United meeting before we take a trip east to face West Ham, opponents we haven't exactly thrived against in recent years. In fact, some of the games have become infamous, the 1-0 defeat that saw Wenger and Pardew nearly come to blows, and a 3-2 reverse where Sol Campbell jumped ship at half time.

Less than a month ago, we approached a Premiership game away at Fulham with the goalkeeping position in disarray. Almunia had been struck down for over a week with a chest infection, and with Fabianski also out with a long term injury, young Mannone had been thrown into a Champions League game in Liege.

The first part of our house move is now done (selling the old one), so the blog should return to normal for about a week, until we get the keys to the new place and it all kicks off again. Apologies for the late nature of the posts in the meantime.

So what have I missed? Well, I caught the Alkmaar game in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and for the most part thought we looked comfortable.