Ducky's Note: 'Neutral' Arsenal fan Swaroop is back after a long hiatus (and with some spare time from his proper-journalism course at Newcastle) to look at whether a handshake is such a big deal and while we condemn the racism, we shouldn't stoke the fire by blowing up every little act remotely related to it.

As far as starts to difficult weeks go, that turned out to be half-decent, yeah? After eons of bumbling around in the wilderness every time our rivals slipped up, Arsenal finally took advantage of dropped points around them yesterday by squeezing past Sunderland with very little toothpaste in the tube to spare.

Nicks' note: This is a guest post. Like Ramires powering through the middle, straight-talking Sahil Dumir holds no prisoners and says it like it is. Small bio? He's a smug-smiling, hard-working, all-round good egg. He's also a Chelsea fan, which offsets all of the above.

A genial head-nod to all Arselings out there. Things are usually pretty quiet on the disquiet front after a win, and it has expectedly been all shush-and-silence in the wake of us playing Blackburn like a set of drums last week. But just like the draw at Bolton didn't mean that the team was on a one-way trip to Hades, a rout over ten-man relegation fodder doesn't a summer make.

Now that the dust has settled, here's a look at some of the transfers that took place during the January transfer window, and see if we can separate the wheat from the chaff.

Whereas last season money was being splashed out on the likes of Fernando Torres and Andy Carroll like a mad gambler who got his greasy mits on a load of free bets, the window this time around was a lot more sensible, indicating a lot less value in the market.

54 years ago in Munich, 8 of Manchester United's brightest stars were killed when the aircraft that was bringing them back home crashed. Along with them, 3 of the backroom staff, 8 journalists and 2 other passengers also perished bringing the total casualty count to 21. Nothing could have prepared the city of Manchester and indeed the whole footballing world for a tragedy of that scale.

John Terry is at the thick of it all again. Here's my thoughts: Yes, the FA had considerable case to strip him, but in doing so they have effectively gone against their own coach (don't these people ever communicate with each other? It's almost as though they pass messages to each other though the press.

Historically, battles for bridges have often defined the context and eventual outcomes of war. Severing the connectivity between two groups of the opposing army, or preventing further advances over an otherwise insurmountable barrier usually seemed like a good way to gain an advantage for the longer term.

I felt that recently we had quite good performances but did not get the results. Today we got the performance and the result, which is ideally what you want.

- Arsene Wenger, post-match wibbling session

Arsenal's January has been like the ice-skating learning curve from hell.

Football is a funny game. When you predict like a master pundit (read-Carlton Palmer) every thing goes topsy turvy and it actually ends up even more interesting. The past week was no exception and it had everything, I mean everything. For a guy like me the premier league is the only source of joy in what can be called an uneventful life (Yes, what can you do when you are an engineer with a long and winding road ahead).

What a rough week I have had. My week was similar to Arsenals current form, depressing. Well screw all that, we still had a great week of football. So let me give you a slightly over the top review of the week that wasn't:

Arsenal

It was another dramatic week for the Gunners.

What a rough week I have had. My week was similar to Arsenals current form, depressing. Well screw all that, we still had a great week of football. So let me give you a slightly over the top review of the week that wasn't:

Arsenal:

It was another dramatic week for the Gunners.

Ducky's Note: Rathna Prashanth looks at a novel way to solve Torres' striking problem. By getting rid of Drogba!

Legend, proven goal scorer, leader on the pitch- these are some of the terms that describe the powerful Ivorian Drogba, aka the Top Dog of the Bridge. At 150 goals and still counting, not only has he been an amazing goalscorer for Chelsea, he has also been a tremendous athlete.

It's almost as if the BITS-Pilani internet connection foresaw it with mystic eyes. As soon as the Arsenal-Manchester United match shuffled to its conclusion, after all three goals, missed chances, TheSubstitution™ and ‘You don't know what you're doing', the World Wide Web gave notice and discreetly left the premises of my college for days on end.

Sunday's match turned up a lot of heroes and villains for both teams. The match itself went like most people had predicted; a close encounter that could have gone either way... that is until 75 minutes into the game, when what can only be considered a game changing event occurred. But I'll get to that later.