His last minute equaliser at Everton in 2008/09 season when he collected a long pin- point pass from Diaby (yes, you read that right) on his chest on the left hand side of the penalty area after pulling away from the in- form Jagielka to rifle a left foot half volley into the far corner of the Gwladys Street

As we all recognise, Robin Van Persie has been a fantastic player for Arsenal. He has been held back by injuries and hasn’t been given the recognition by people outside Arsenal that he deserves. Maybe this is because of his injuries but I’ve always been shocked at how little praise he gets from the dirty world of football pundits and the media.

If you count Lionel Messi as a striker, I would say he is the only striker better than Van Persie in the world. At the moment Wayne Rooney is looking fantastic too but he has his on and off spells so I’d prefer Van Persie to him. David Villa is up there too, but I rarely watch him so can’t really judge if he’s better than ‘RVP’ or not. Of course, I look at this through red- tinted glasses but I would say he’s better than the likes of Suarez, Hernandez, Tevez and Aguero.

Anyway, here is a list of my top 5 Robin Van Persie moments:

5) His goal against Liverpool in 08/09 when he controlled a pass excellently on his chest and swivelled quickly onto his right foot, past Carragher and struck the ball home to put us 1-0 against Liverpool. It was one of his best goals for Arsenal in my opinion; the only sour note on it was that we ended up only drawing 1-1.

4) His double against Tottenham in the 09/10 season. After a frustrating first 40 minutes against a side that had claimed before the match they had a better squad than us which was a bit rich as then they went and parked the bus against us, RVP met Sagna’s cross to flick in the opening goal and then the two combined shortly after half- time to make it 3-0 against the Scum.

3) His last minute equaliser at Everton in 2008/09 season when he collected a long pin- point pass from Diaby (yes, you read that right) on his chest on the left hand side of the penalty area after pulling away from the in- form Jagielka to rifle a left foot half volley into the far corner of the Gwladys Street end net to grab a vital equaliser for Arsenal.

Cue ecstatic celebrations in the packed away end, as well as about 50 seats away from there where a young lad jumped up in joy, much to the disgust of his Everton supporting Dad.

2) His brace against Chelsea in the 08/ 09 season when he turned the game on it’s head by putting Arsenal 2-1 ahead at Stamford Bridge to earn a crucial win and a fabulous day for us supporters. Made all the more sweet by the fact his first was offside which was a good case of ‘what goes around comes around’ after his goal in 2005/06 against Chelsea was ruled out for offside when he wasn’t.

1) The brilliantly taken left foot half- volley against Barcelona last season. It sparked what turned out to be my favourite night as an Arsenal fan to date. It was a brilliant goal, typical Van Persie; a powerful left foot half volley where he used intelligence and amazing accuracy to strike it inside the near post to draw us level.

So there are my top 5 RVP moments. They all back up my point of what a brilliant player he is, and has been for a number of seasons which is more than you can say for Adebayor who was a one season wonder and didn’t have the consistency Van Persie has shown, nor the overall game RVP also has. He, in my opinion, is the best striker we’ve had since Henry left.

Mean Lean’s Response

I think many readers could probably each have their own individual top 5 list of van Persie strikes and it would be difficult to categorically say which one was the best. His amazing volley at Charlton, his bender into the top corner after leaving Robbie Savage on his arse against Blackburn and one goal I love in his earlier days against Aston Villa I think it was. Robert Pires slipped him down the right and the cocky youngster tormented two defenders with amazingly quick feet before bending it into the far bottom corner.

Robin van Persie, a great goal scorer and a scorer of great goals.

My one big regret is injuries. Not only to himself but to Cesc Fabregas. We never had the chance to see those two play for 95% of a season together in all the time they were at the club. At least when they had established themselves and that is quite sad.

*Grabs onto my wooden chair* He appears to be stronger physically nowadays. He seems to be avoiding injury much more than the last few years where 5-10 games would cause his body a problem. *lets go*

We have one of the best players in the world at center forward, we have to hope that we can build the same around him, either from development or via the transfer market.

Robin van Persie deserves to win trophies and I hope we can help him get those trophies.