RVP has been in inspirational form, anything he touches right now turns to gold. He came on Sunday when the game was tied for the ineffective Chamakh and instantly made an impact running’ into the near post to tap home Gervinho’s low cross. The 2nd goal was almost similar, Good burst of pace from Gervinho on the left hand side to beat his marker then put in a lovely cut

WOW! It feels like Christmas after our 3rd straight win and our 2nd consecutive league win.

Wenger elected to rest our captain which was what I wanted before kick-off. Robin van Persie has started lots of games in the past few weeks, he played 2 90 minutes games for Holland during the international week and he has also started our last 4 league games prior to the Stoke game on Sunday.

RVP has been in inspirational form, anything he touches right now turns to gold. He came on Sunday when the game was tied for the ineffective Chamakh and instantly made an impact running’ into the near post to tap home Gervinho’s low cross. The 2nd goal was almost similar, Good burst of pace from Gervinho on the left hand side to beat his marker then put in a lovely cut back cross to set up RVP for the 3rd goal.

In 2011, RVP has been on the score’s sheet 25 times in 26 appearances in the league. Only 2 players have bettered that return and they are the 2 best players in the world – Messi and Ronaldo.

The talk doing the rounds right now is how we are a one man team which in my opinion is BULL CRAP!  Yes, RVP has been the man doing big things for us at the moment, still we can’t take away the involvement of other players especially for the goals he has scored. Theo and Gervinho have done incredibly well in feeding RVP.

The media come out to feed us lies and we on the other side believe their sorry tales. What if we are a one man team? Are we gonna be the first or the last that depends on a particular player for inspiration? Tell me where Barcelona and Real Madrid would be without the goals of Messi and Ronaldo? Tell me where City would be without the key passes of Silva or where UTD would be without the goals and ability of Rooney? Why do the media pick on us all the time?

RVP is our captain and its only normal we look up to him for inspiration when we need a little bit of pushing. Whilst I agree he can’t do everything by himself and other players must come to the fore but as it stands his goals are pushing us up the ladder, if this is the case, a million and 1 fans are happy and contempt with it. Our prayer right now is that he continues to bang in the goals and stay injury free.

At the beginning of last season, up until RVP’s return from injury in December, I watched UTD’s games a lot and admired the movement of Chicharito when without the ball. Chicharito’s movement off the ball reminds me Inzahgi which is a marvelous ability to have. At some point I looked at our then current strikers including RVP and thought none of them could measure up to him in terms of movement without the ball. Fast forward to January this year and RVP has added the brilliant off the ball movement to his locker.

Most of RVP goals this year has come from being in the right place at the right time and you can only achieve this by having the intelligence of anticipating where the ball would be placed, looking for spaces to occupy and understanding the game.

In our last 2 games, Gervinho has come out of his shell with 2 good performances to come out of it. He and Ramsey completely changed the game when introduced in the 2nd half of the Marseille game at the Velodrome. What Walcott lacked in the game, Gervinho brought in with abundance. The ability to beat his man under intense pressure, stretch play and draw opposing full backs inside thereby creating space for our midfield players to run into.

Against Stoke, he was highly impressive. He scored from a beautiful lofted pass from Ramsey and set up 2 goals for RVP. Without him I kind of find it hard to see where RVP’s goals would have come from. His pace and ability to beat his man created RVP’s goals.

One of the key areas of our formation is our center back pairing. We have started to see a solid partnership being built.

Mertesacker and Koscielny are becoming a force and in our last 3 games we have let in 2 goals and the 2 have come from set pieces. Mertesacker brings calmness into our defence, no rash challenges and reads the game brilliantly. We can all agree that he lacks pace but rarely do you see him beaten for pace. I agree its too early to sing his praise but truth be told he has added positives into our defending.

Koscielny on the other hand has always been a player I admire. Right from the very minute he was purchased from Lorient, I fell in love with him. Like RvP said the other day he has everything to become a top class Center Back.

Koscielny and Mertesacker compliment each other well. What Per lacks in pace, Koscielny has in abundance. Per brings experience into the back line and Koscielny can only feed from it.

Wenger has come out to say that when Vermaelen returns, he won’t work straight into the starting line-up which is a huge testament on how good Koscielny and Mertesacker have performed together.

Vermaelen is our best defender and when he is fit and returns Wenger will have no choice other than to start him. Who fills the 2nd slot would be a big ask for Wenger. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.

All in all we are getting there with some positive results being churned out. We play Bolton today in the Carling Cup and the fringe players will have to make a huge statement most especially Park who has got a big chance to move ahead of Chamakh in the pecking order. A win today will just about put us in the right frame of mind looking ahead to the London derby against Chelsea at the Stamford Bridge.