In recent years I have felt that van Persie has often put too much behind his freekicks, almost trying to burst the net and as a result he has lost control of many of his efforts, many of them flying over the crossbar. This time he chose the Thierry Henry school of freekicks, almost flicking the ball over the wall

If there was any argument over who is the best striker in the Premier League then surely everybody got the answer at full time at the Emirates on Saturday afternoon.

Arsene Wenger was questioned at his press conference over the use of his star pupil following comments from Dennis Bergkamp. Arsene Wenger’s response was to point out van Persie’s excellent strike rate. It took all of 29 seconds before van Persie struck once again. Gervinho received a clipped pass into his path, Robin’s movement was too much for the Sunderland defenders to handle and his right footed low shot zipped into the net. I wouldn’t have been impressed as a Sunderland supporter to see my goalkeeper not make a dive for it though.

Then for twenty minutes Robin van Persie mesmerised the entire stadium with some glorious football. The high point should have been a major contender for goal of the season. Arteta played a pass into the feet of the Dutchman who sucked Richardson in and dragged the ball around into his path and his chip floated over the keeper, almost in slow motion but the ball came out from the inside of the post rather than into the net where it deserved to go.

What I find amazing is the fact that many people have ignored that he produced that chip with his weaker foot. The technique and confidence needed to produce that type of quality on your wrong side is hugely underrated. I couldn’t imagine the best player in the world, Lionel Messi being able to pull that off on his weaker side. It was very Dennis Bergkamp.

van Persie and Gervinho went close with long range drives, both players worked the space very well. Sunderland did manage to slip down our right on a couple of occasions due to Jenkinson’s inexperience, once being caught in possession and once pushing up instead of dropping off in line with his center backs.

Jenkinson owes Szczesny a drink, as our Polish stopper made a ridiculously good save from point blank range from a Cattermole header after Jenkinson’s error. Those mistakes aside I thought Carl Jenkinson had a very good game. He will make mistakes at his age and he will learn from those. I remember a young Rio Ferdinand was labelled as error prone at West Ham when he first made the leap into the first team. I believe the same will happen to Carl Jenkinson.

We had plenty of the ball but could not create that second goal. That second goal is the one that we have often failed to grab once on top and we were punished yet again.

Mikel Arteta handballed about 30 yards from goal and Larsson and Richardson stood behind the ball. As soon as I saw Szczesny’s position, I just knew that Larsson was going to find the opposite side. Credit to the Swede, his strike was executed with perfection and there was nothing Szczesny could do about it.

In the second half we dominated the game in search of the winner but carving out chances was becoming a problem, van Persie was given special attention from Sunderland and could not influence the game as he did in the first.

Sunderland kept giving away free kicks outside of their penalty box and Arteta, Santos and Walcott all blazed high and not very handsome. Apart from van Persie’s deflected effort at Birmingham City last season we hadn’t converted a direct free kick since van Persie almost broke the cross bar against Sunderland in 2007. Work clearly needs to be done in that department, especially given the fact that many of our short passes in the final third should result in plenty of opportunities from the dead ball.

With minutes remaining on the clock, van Persie was fouled once again from Wes Brown who seemed to be given a free licence to foul as many players as possible.

In recent years I have felt that van Persie has often put too much behind his freekicks, almost trying to burst the net and as a result he has lost control of many of his efforts, many of them flying over the crossbar. This time he chose the Thierry Henry school of freekicks, almost flicking the ball over the wall and curling into the top corner away from the diving Mignolet.

That was the winner from a captain in top form. I thought Tomas Rosicky was fantastic throughout the game and we move the ball better when he is in the side. His final ball often let him down but his driving runs were reminiscent of the 2008 Rosicky. After that type of display, I would be disappointed to see the Czech dropped.

Andrey Arshavin came on and made a massive difference. We had been missing the link between the midfield and attackers and once the Russian was introduced that changed. I was intrigued by the position he took up when he came on. Replacing Gervinho he vacated the wide position and turned up in more central areas. His magic run and left footed shot deserved a goal.

With Arshavin in this form, I would like to see how he would handle the number 10 role, the attacking midfield position thus giving van Persie a player to link up with who also has the ability to make the difference in the final third. I suspect that I am wasting my time as Arsene has yet to show any signs that he may be interested in doing that on a regular basis.

While Rosicky, Song, van Persie and a few others had good games, there were still a few off colour and that has been the running theme for quite some time. We need a large chunk of our players to find their best form consistently all at the same time and we will only see the best of this team when that happens. Individual consistency will result in collective consistency.

A welcomed three points puts us four points off big spending Liverpool and six points off fourth position. Only eight games have been played we have thirty more to play so talk of Arsenal not being able to make the top four is laughable at such an early stage. What is important is that we gain another spinal player in Vermaelen and we string a run of results together.

Man of the match: Robin van Persie