There has been a lot made of the response from Arsenal fans to Manchester United, and Robin van Persie, winning the Premier League.

When Samir Nasri won it with Manchester City, the clear response was one of hatred towards him. But can you say that about Robin van Persie?

The fact is that every footballer is after the same things. Money, success and playing amongst winners. Robin van Persie spent 8 years at Arsenal, won an FA Cup medal and nothing since. Yes, he manufactured a move away from Arsenal but can you blame him? Out of all the players that have worn an Arsenal shirt since 2005, I wouldn’t class him as a money-grabber. You could say that about Adebayor, Nasri, Clichy, Song, Hleb and Gallas, but not RVP.

Certain players, such as Cesc and RVP gave everything to Arsenal whenever they wore the shirt. The only thing I care about as an Arsenal fan, is that when players have the honour of wearing our shirt, that they give 110%. I could say that about Kolo Toure, I could say that about Cesc Fabregas, and I could say that about Robin van Persie.

There are even players still at the club who supporters know aren’t putting in effort they should be.

Over the past 9 years since I started this blog (7 years in this current form) one thing I’ve always talked about is having winners in the side. We haven’t had many over the last few years but The Invincibles team was full of them. With players like Henry, Pires, Vieira, Bergkamp, Freddie et al, you knew winning meant everything. You could tell in the way that they would celebrate goals, celebrate victories and celebrate winning trophies.

And since then, I could only say that Cesc, RVP and Jack fell into that same category.

So for RVP to move on and win something justifies his move to Old Trafford.

We cannot keep being blinded by the smokescreen. We haven’t won anything for 8 seasons now, and we cannot complain when we have winners in the side. Our problem is that we don’t have enough. It’s hardly surprising that players coming to the peak of their careers at 28/29 years of age who have had season after season winning nothing, wanting to move to a club with more ambition.

And that’s what it comes down to. Cesc and RVP have moved on and won things. We’re still fighting for a Top Four position in the league. It would have been wonderful if they stayed and won things with us but after 7 years without even looking like winning the league (except for the 2007/2008 season) we’ve been well off the pace.

And as you all know, Sunday sees the arrival of newly crowned Champions Manchester United to The Emirates, where the club have announced that they will be giving United a guard of honour.

It’s a “classly” move by the club but it’s nothing more than a PR stunt really. I, like all of you I suspect, hope that we absolutely stuff them.

Manchester United have a knack for taking their foot off the gas once they’ve won something so hopefully they will still be in a party mood and we can take advantage. Sunday holds the biggest challenge on our mission to play Champions League football next season so hopefully we can get the 3 points we desperately need.

As we enter Monday, we sit in 3rd position in the Premier League, with Chelsea 1 point behind us and Tottenham 2 points behind, although they both have a game in hand. And they still have to play each other, so Champions League football next season is firmly in our hands.

I think the best way to put Saturday’s performance was that “we battled” for the 3 points, and at this stage of the season that is the most important thing. Although Fulham went down to 10 men early on, we found it difficult to break them down and it took a set-piece for us to open the scoring. Even then, we found it hard to add to that slender lead and Fulhm, to their credit, probably deserved something from the game.

But we left with 3 points, a clean sheet and put pressure on Chelsea and Tottenham going into their Sunday games.

Unfortunately, Manchester City showed why they are well adrift of Manchester United in the race for the title in a 90 minutes that summed up their season. They were good for the majority of the first half, playing some really excellent attacking football (most of it through Carlos Tevez) but in the second half it was clear they weren’t bothered and allowed Tottenham back into the game. The frustrating thing was that if they were more clinical they could have been out of sight in the first half an hour but the comeback probably means Tottenham now have the “mental strength” and “confidence” to kick on for the remainder of the season.

And at Anfield, Luis Suarez gave us a life line. Wanting to live up to his reputation as a biter and hand ball expert, we duly did both, attacking Ivanovic and conceding a needless penalty. However, despite being possibly the most annoying footballer since Ruud van Nistelrooy, he still managed to score a dramatic goal with the last touch of the game. Whatever you say about him, this guy is never boring.

So that leaves us with Champions League qualification in our own hands.

And even though we would have loved for Tottenham to have lost yesterday, the flipside of their win is that Manchester United, barring a miracle from Villa, will win the Premier League title tonight. Going into our game with them on Sunday, that isn’t the worst thing. Of course, they are a professional club but you would think that they won’t be playing with the same intensity as they would be if they needed to win at The Emirates to seal the title.

Hopefully, they’ll still be celebrating and have their eye off the ball, so to speak.

Just a final word on Arsenal – Giroud got sent off for a needless challenge in the final minutes, meaning he will miss some vital games for us going into the run in. For me however, that isn’t a bad thing. With Giroud as the main attacker he has been isolated and found it hard to score goals. Playing a game or two with him out of the side, and trying find other players to fill that void will help us in my opinion. We over-rely on him sometimes and forget to try and find other solutions. If we had Giroud available for United, I feel it would be playing into their hands.

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