Howdy readers. I am the new blogger for Arsenal, and I can only hope I can do the club some justice. I'm a student living in Vermont, so suffice to say my life isn't that interesting. I would like to move onto something you are interested in - namely l'Arse.

Merry Christmas to all our readers and contributors. I hope that you have enjoyed the articles on InsideArsenal Blog. This year saw the launch of the pre and post match chat rooms which have been a great success.

Fabregas_the_King is wishing peace good will and good health to all Gooners and non Gooners the world over.

There is no crisis at Arsenal. Having been predicted to drop out of the top four in the summer, there is no question that any rational Arsenal fan, would have grabbed our current league position with two hands, having followed two seasons of toying with Tottenham in fourth place mediocrity.

As you may have guessed from the light posting lately, my personal schedule has changed and I'll no longer be able to continue blogging at The Offside.

The last 15 months here at the Arsenal Offside have been a blast for me, and I hope that you regulars have enjoyed yourselves as well.

Arsenal are still top of the table, of course, and I look forward to following along with the next writer here at Arsenal Offside.

An unusual win. Three goals off long balls (one from Almunia) and no creativity or spark until Fabregas and Hleb came off. After going 1-0 down in the first twenty minutes due to some sorry defending from a corner, it seemed as the optimistic 4-4-2 we used, with Bendtner, Eduardo and Diaby all starting, was going to fail .

That was an absolutely brilliant result. 2-1 away at Villa is fantastic. It is one of the toughest away matches of the season and we came through it to get 3 points. A lot of people thought we might get a point - me included - but not this Arsenal side. I worried that with Fabregas out we might struggle but the key to this was who else came back.

A disappointing night all around. We won 2-1, but Sevilla demolished Slavia 3-0 and we are resigned to second place. Honestly, our game was forgettable - the great work by Walcott in the first half disappearing in the second, with the return of Robin van Persie being the most notable event of the game.

WELCOME to INSIDEARSENAL the one place on the web that has only truly loyal Arsenal fans. We will debate our differences over this formation or thatformation, we will discuss whether this player or that player had a bad game that day. We will speculate on this transfer or that loan, but what you will not find here, is anyone bad mouthing our great team!

Head to Head Arsenal v Chelsea.

In the build up to this clash of the titans which unless you have been living on Planet Zog,you will know is at 4pm Sunday 16th December, Fabregas the King will compare the relative merits of the teams based on their current form. The hope is to give a sneak preview of the game from a Gooner's pespective.

They say that it never rains but it pours and some might criticise Mathieu Flamini's petulance in refusing to accept a new £40,000 a week deal. The Times has reported Flamini as saying

"I am a free agent in January, so we will see what happens," Flamini said.

Ok it is that time of year when in addition to alcohol, kisses under the mistletoe and presents from Santa Claus, we wish for good will and glad tidings to all men...Unless you happen to be a Tottenham fan.

Let's face it, and I am not going to beat about the bush.

A nail-biting conclusion to cap off a fine effort by our young stars. The Carling Cup is once again the showcase for Arsenal's young talent, and with an average age of 20, Arsenal beat Blackburn's normal squad. Diaby opened up scoring in the sixth minute with a deft volley and Eduardo solidified Arsenal's lead only ten minutes later.

After the narrow win over Tottenham (2-1) over the weekend and the excruciating draw at Pompey (0-0), some fresh ideas are needed for tomorrow's game against Everton. The team is tired and Wenger is stuck. Simply put, the 4-5-1 has killed our creativity and ability to score, resulting in our drop in the table.

Kolo Toure showed us what an excellent centre back he is against Everton last night, The reason? well because as the doubts began to creep into this young side and the confidence wavered; when Fabregas's usually pin point passes went astray; and when despite Flamini's endeavour, the fifty-fifty ball fell to the opposition, Kolo was there to mop up the attacks of the less than potent Evertonian threat.

Here on InsideArsenal, we regularly have comments and contributions from Gooners overseas. In the USA there is a large fan base based in New York with a smaller clan on the west coast. I am aware of Australian Gooners, some of whom also leave comments. We have comments from Africa and Indonesia.

The new Insidearsenal Chat Room is now open for pre-match chat. Share your views and opinions on tonights match at Newcastle. To login click here then enter gooner01 as the password.

We will also be online straight after the match with your views on how the match went.

I have very many good memories of Gilberto Silva, I recall when he first came on the scene at Highbury in 2002 and his rapid rise to fame, add to this his role in the invincibles team, then it gave one the clear indication that this brazilian was a steadying force. I recall season after season when to have Gilberto out of the team meant that Arsenal would lose.

There are two ways to view last night's draw against Newcastle. The first is to be disapointed that we drew with a side struggling in mid-table and against a team who had shipped four goals against Portsmouth and three against Liverpool. The other one - the one I choose to take - is that we got a draw away at a side fighting for their place in the team, fighting for their manager and all that with 3/4 of our main midfield out injured, aswell as one of our first choice strikers out.

The new Insidearsenal Chat Room is now open for post-match chat. Share your views and opinions on this afternoons match at Middlesbrourgh. To login click here then enter gooner01 as the password.

We will also be online straight after the match with your views on how the match went.

I write this match report before the game is over, at 83 minutes to be precise! Why is this? Ill tell you; as soon as the second Boro goal went in, the game was over. From the first minute we were awful. Almunia made a mistake coming to meet Aliadiere with Toure in close company.

At last... some real breaking news.

The official website of Levski Sofia has reported on December 12 2007

The young PFC Levski forward Nikolay Dimitrov will fly to London these days to join for one-week Arsenal training sessions.

"I believe without a doubt that this season will be the most exciting year in the Premier League ever. Since I've been here you have never had four teams as tight as this. It's very difficult to pick one out of the three contenders. For me all three are the same [strengths] but for different reasons.

Before I get to the topic of my blog, I have to mention Grandslam Sunday; Gallas scores and Clichy gets man-of-the match! What better way to show Cashley that we really don't need him. A great result but its important to remember that, despite Sky's hype, this was just another weekend.

So, Blackburn away - never a nice trip to make. A 1-1 draw this season was far less than we deserved but also more than we have got there in recent visits. Last season we went out in the FA Cup to a late Benni McCarthy strike after, in my view, Wenger underestimated Blackburn.

Whoa. Arsenal is facing AC Milan in the next round, with the first leg at the Emirates on February 20th and the second leg at the San Siro on March 4th. An unbelievable draw (though I guessed it), and a tantalizing prospect for neutrals. This game will be simply massive.

After what was a pretty dire first half in which Spurs had the better chances, the lads managed to go up a gear or two to just about finish Tottenham off. The first goal was a moment of beauty and from here there were a few inevitabilties. Arsenal have never lost a game when Emmanuel Adebayor scored and the players and the fans celebrated like we were on the way to three more points.

A damp evening in Portsmouth was always going to be a difficult fixture, coming later in the day when ManU had already notched an easy three points against north east strugglers Sunderland. The prospect of getting a victory at Fratton park was already reduced by the stated intention of the team to defend with all it's might after conceding sloppy goals at Anfield.

A week or two ago many would have described tonight's fixture away at Newcastle as an easy fixture. Newcastle were leaking goals left right and centre; Arsenal on the other hand were scoring goals a plenty matched with a watertight defence. This match however will be far from easy, for a few reasons.

The charge: Anderson Luís de Abreu Oliveira is a better player than Francesc Fabregas.

Case for the Prosecution:

Anderson Luis de Abreu Oliveira signed for Brazilian Club Gremio when he was just five years old in 1993. He was 18 years old when he made his first team debut for Gremio.

Arsenal travel to Middlesborough for their third game in 8 days, and so far so good, considering the absence of key players like Van Persie, Fabregas, Flamini and Hleb, this Arsenal team has done well to keep the momentum going forward. Two less than convincing displays at Aston Villa and Newcastle has motivated the anti-Arsenal brigade, and the resurgence of "crisis at the Arsenal" is starting to hit the news wires, yet when one considers that during the unbeaten season of 200/3/4 we reached this stage with 2 fewer points gathered, I think the "write off the Arsenal" merchants are a little premature.

Tomorrow we finish our 3 part Northern round trip that has taken us to Villa Park, St James' Park and now the Riverside. We won brilliantly away at Villa when many were hoping for a draw. We slipped up a little against a rejuvinated Newcastle side ut there was no shame in a 1-1 draw away there.

I am not one to hide, and you would not expect me to gloat over an Arsenal defeat. However where I stand with a clear conscious is the fact that I wrote blogs crictical of two Arsenal players, and as usual I got the negative fans who just read read the headline and fail to understand the real content.

Ok so we've drawn with Newcastle and lost to Middlesbrough. Yes we were pants against to Sevilla and the second half at Villa was worrying so everything points to a serious dip in form. Saying all that though, there really is no need to panic; it's mid-December and we are still top of the league, still in all the cups and through to the second stage of the Champions League.

Insidearsenal our proud to announce the launch of our official merchandising products in association with Arseshirts.com.

We can now offer everything from t-shirts, umbrella, stickers through to bags and mugs all with the official insidearsenal logo on.

These items look fantastic and will show your support for your club and our blog.

At the stroke of midnight on 1 January 2008, the transfer window reopens and the Premiership's clubs have a month to boost their squads. The four week period is usually one where clubs get the chance to put right the mistakes of the previous summer, new managers get a chance to impose their mark on the new inherited teams, and disaffected players get the opportunity to put up the "I'm available" signs.

From the moment Robin Van Persie split the Steaua defence to release Theo Walcott, we knew the dutchman was back. And at just the right time. In recent games we have missed the creativity of our no.11, even more so with Hleb and Fabregas out. His vision and skill surpasses most in our squad and with him in our team we are a far larger threat going forward.

Good morning all, and as I predicted yesterday we are now going to be waiting anxiously the outcome of the draw on December 21. Spanish, Italian or Portugese opposition awaits us. By February many things will have become clear and after the January transfer window, some player issues resolved.

What an absolutely amazing game of Football; it had everything; fous, cards, end to end football, and a barrage of fans' abuse. How ironic it should be William Gallas who got the winner. How typical that the final act of the game was a bad tackle by Cesc Fabregas on none other than Ashley Cole, the same guy that said the Spaniard had no commitment and did not have enough experience.

What a win. A gutsy, confident performance where we matched Chelsea's tenacity and vigor step for step. It may not have been one of our greatest performances, but it displayed a deep fortitude which few suspected from Arsenal. Captain Fantastico William Gallas cemented his place as a leader with the game-winning goal, and the Mr.

Good morning all, especially those still nursing a hangover from the fantastic victory at the Emirates on Sunday. the fall out is continuing with the Chelsea cry babies. Eboue will go down in Gooner fame as the guy who broke three bones in John Terry's foot, with just a flick of his ankle.