Van Persie hails Arsenal character

Arsenal captain Robin van Persie hailed his team-mates’ character following Sunday’s hard-fought 2-1 victory over Sunderland.

The Dutchman scored his side’s quickest ever Premier League goal to open the scoring, netting past Simon Mignolet after just 29 seconds of Howard Webb’s whistle being blown, before Sebastian Larsson equalised just before the break with a brilliant free-kick.

The Gunners had to call on their skipper once more to grab all three points, with Van Persie replicating Larsson’s set-piece heroics with just seven minutes to go.

Asked if it was an essential victory, van Persie told Sky Sports: “Yes, a much needed one. We started really well, the first 20-25 minutes were really good, then we dropped a little bit.”

“After that we let them come back into the game, we suffered a bit from there, be to be fair, great performance, great character because we’ve been there before in the last few minutes, 2-1 score.”

Van Persie reiterated his comments in the matchday programme in which he declared he has no intention of leaving the London side.

“I saw loads of comments about that leaving and I thought after maybe one or two days it’d go away, but it didn’t and it became a bigger issue. So, I thought that it was time to explain that story well,” he said.

“I’m committed as I say, this is my eighth year, so if you can say it about one player is committed, it’s me I think.”