Ramsey continued his recent good form with the opening goal. From a purely non-objective, irrational fan point of view this one was probably the one that provided the most satisfaction simply because of the opposition. The stories about 'redemption' have and will be done to death but for Aaron Ramsey to score against Stoke of all teams given what happened in the past would suggest there might actually be some truth to all that Karma talk that Buddhists tell us about. Sometimes, in re

All-in-all it this was a solid performance from Arsenal, who appeared relaxed and alert to most potential goal threats and authoritative in attack. The one touch passing was a joy to watch, particularly the interchanges between Ozil, Ramsey, Wilshere and Gnabry.
It was reassuring to observe Wilshere in good form with his unselfish play, clever passing and deceptive movement with the ball.

More than Walcott’s movements, is the system Arsène Wenger has in the past used but with more compactness this season; the ‘Midfield-4’ as I like to call it, early in the season Rosicky was used in the #10 role with Cazorla on the LW but with a lot more freedom to drift deeper and make up a Flat-3 with the Double Pivot, while also supporting the #10 in the final 3rd, all together it gives off a compact shaped Midfield-4, whereby all 4 midfielders can easily find each other, interchange and support in order to overload the central areas specifically, but are also able to overload the flanks on either side.

On at least three occasions Signed Da Ting was provided with silver service delivery from Giroud and Gunner Galatico Ozil. The German national put in a quality shift, whilst looking like he was waiting for some pre-match Pepto Bismol to take effect. That must have been a hard core sickness bug going round Colney, because Ozil looked like he was about to spew like Liam from One Direction. Nausea aside Ozil’s delivery was very precise, but the end product from Theo not so much. Like an excited, sweaty- palmed, boy teen about to wave goodbye to his virginity, Theo shot his load too quickly.

We are currently on a 5 game unbeaten run due in no small part to our superb French centre forward. We have based our game on quick movement and passing with Giroud holding the ball up, looking for the lay off to the on rushing man or, as seen on Saturday, slipping a ball through the defence. His hold up play has been fantastic and his finishing excellent. Whilst last year he was more than satisfactory, this year has seen a real step up in quality and confidence. He seems to have a great understanding with his team mates and is clearly enjoying his football at the moment. That’s why his injury is all the

£70 million! That’s some serious cash. But let’s register a few caveats. Firstly, we’ve not had anything like that kind of money for the entire trophy-less period. Back in November 2006 the cash balance was £53 million. Well, if a balance of £154m only gives us a transfer kitty of around £70 million I think we can assume things were pretty tight back in 2006! Furthermore, as recently as 2009 the club took a pretty big hit on its property profits – selling a set of flats at a £10m discount to a real estate group to free up some funds. This is not the act of a club rolling in cash, it was a fairly desperate act of a club trying to keep all its financial balls in the air.

Özil's debut at Sunderland. Excitement levels were off the scale and we weren't to be disappointed as within 11 minutes, the Gelsenkirchen born midfielder took down a raking Gibbs pass on the left hand side of the penalty area and squared the ball to Olivier Giroud to open the scoring. Much has been made of his ridiculous assist numbers over the past five years so one suspects this maiden effort in an Arsenal shirt will be the first of many. He could have had a couple more on the day too had Theo Walcott decided to play football rather than whatever it was he was doing out there. Özil then had a hand the decisive third goal and apparently completed more passes in the attacking third

This is why many preferred someone like Suarez or Rooney over Higuain, who is more of a pure finisher than a creator, and (when the deal still seemed a possibility) there was plenty of talk of playing Suarez with Giroud rather than instead of. This is really a killing-two-birds-with-one-stone scenario (the two birds being the need for a creative player and the need for a striker), albeit with one of the birds more being important than the other (the need for a striker). I’ve heard Özil described as the “icing on an unfinished cake” but this is just plain wrong - he helps to both partly complete the cake and provide the icing. To carry on the slightly convoluted two birds example, with Özil’s arrival we’ve absolutely incinerated one of them (the need for a creative player) and managed to partially wound the

Enter Mesut Ozil. The German national team's technically gifted playmaker and the world's best number 10 according to the Special One. A player quite surprisingly deemed surplus to requirements at Real Madrid, simply because of the shed load of cash Los Blancos were prepared to spend on Galactico-in-waiting Gareth Bale. It is ironic that Spurs best player securing a spot at Madrid enabled Wenger to finally splash the cash with an almost Ivana Trump style abandon.The moment Ronaldo’s No.1 fan secured his dream move; it was on like Donkey Kong for Arsenal, with transfer drama more fraught than an Eastenders Christmas special.Twitter was in a frenzied state along with Sky Sports News and their deadline day hosts trending nationally and worldwide.  Shouty gob-almighty Jim White dedicated more time than usual to AFC deals.

Just yesterday I met a fellow Gooner in a class who hailed from Peru – and that got me thinking, nothing brings great people together the way Arsenal (and the wonderful sport that is football) does. Who would’ve thought that a guy from South America and a guy from Asia would meet in North America and talk about their common love for a club that’s based in Europe? It’s experiences like this one that makes one’s love for the sport and in my case, Arsenal, even greater.