Gooner Daily

The Gunners began the month of December with a comfortable victory over Hull City but the club’s four-match winning streak was ended with a draw against Everton. Arsene Wenger’s men visited the San Paolo stadium in Italy for a crunch clash against SSC Napoli and lost to the Italian but they finished their Champions League group as runners up to Borussia Dortmund.

The Gunners returned to Premier League action and were thrashed resoundingly by Manchester City before reaching a goalless stalemate with Chelsea in a game Wenger would be remembered for not making a single substitution. Arsenal ended December with two tricky away wins over West Ham and Newcastle to seal top spot in the Premier League heading into the new year.

At the end of each month, Gooner Daily rates the performances of the Gunners using a series of categories. There will be three nominations for each category and the blog’s readers will place their votes on each category. These votes will be used in the season review post that comes up at the end of the season.

SAVE OF THE MONTH

Wojciech Szczesny was in phenomenal form in November conceding just one goal in six games and he carried this clean sheet run against Hull but his floodgates were opened in the Etihad and he responded with a clean sheet against Chelsea. In the games against West Ham and Newcastle, he made two errors that weren’t costly.

However, Szczesny made some breathtaking saves in the course of the month and the nominated saves are Szczesny’s save from Moussa Sissoko’s shot in the game against Newcastle, Szczesny’s save from Fernandinho’s shot in the drubbing at the Etihad and Szczesny’s neat neat save from Mark Noble’s free kick.

GOAL OF THE MONTH

Arsenal played seven games in the month of ctober, scoring 10 goals in the process. With a plethora of breathtaking goals to choose from, I just had to make do with my top three.

The nominated contenders for the December Goal of the Month are Theo Walcott’s Thierry Henry-esque curler against Manchester City, Lukas Podolski’s thunderbolt against West Ham and Mesut Ozil’s placed effort against Hull City.

ASSIST OF THE MONTH

All 10 goals scored in the month of December came off some superbly threaded balls from a teammate and the nominated assists are Aaron Ramsey’s pass to Mesut Ozil against Hull City, Carl Jenkinson’s inch-perfect cross to Nicklas Bendtner against Hull City and Walcott’s cross to Olivier Giroud against Newcastle.

MATCH OF THE MONTH

Arsenal had a series of mixed results in December with three victories, two draws and two stinging defeats. The nominated Match of the Month contenders are Arsenal 2 Hull 0, West Ham 1 Arsenal 3 and Newcastle 0 Arsenal 1.

WORST MATCH OF THE MONTH

This nomination goes out to the games the Gunners largely under-performed and I can look no further than the horrible thrashing in the hands of Manchester City, the disappointing defeat to Napoli and the painful draw against Everton.

MOST IMPROVED PLAYER OF THE MONTH

This goes to the player that excelled admirably with vastly improved performances in the course of the month. Despite the fact that many players put up improved performances in the month of December, the performances of these three players certainly caught the eye; Theo Walcott, Per Mertesacker and Bacary Sagna.

MOST DISAPPOINTING PLAYER OF THE MONTH

Some Gunners somewhat under-performed in the course of the month and it hurts to mention Santi Cazorla, Jack Wilshere and Olivier Giroud.

PLAYER OF THE MONTH

Arsenal had a somewhat stuttering form in December but there were still some players that produced immense glimpses of their quality in the course of the month that stood out from the rest. Without further ado, here are the top three players in month of December; Per Mertesacker, Theo Walcott and Mesut Ozil.

Feel free to vote in the various categories as you please.

Sayonara.

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