Wenger lauds Van Persie influence

Arsene Wenger refuted the idea Arsenal are a one-man team after Robin van Persie’s brace guided them to a 3-1 victory over Stoke on Sunday.

Ivorian winger Gervinho opened the scoring for Wenger’s side, bur Peter Crouch levelled to have the Emirates crowd on edge at half-time.

Van Persie was brought on for Marouane Chamakh after 67 minutes, and he made his presence felt with his first goal six minutes later before wrapping up victory with a second eight minutes from the end.

The Dutchman’s double took his tally to nine for Arsenal this season, and came just a week after his two goals against Sunderland helped his side escape with a 2-1 win.

Wenger, however, maintains his side are not over-reliant on Van Persie and praised his team’s efforts against Stoke.

“When you want to be a team with quality, you always need one special player, someone like Thierry Henry. I don’t feel we are a one-player team. He (Van Persie) is an exceptional quality, of course,” Wenger said.

“We needed half time to calm down and get back to our game. The second half was all us, especially after the first fifteen minutes and then the problem was to score goals.”

“Robin can do that better than many people and he did it when he came on. Overall it was a good, spirited performance.”

“Of course Robin, with the two goals, deserves massive credit but I feel Gervinho had a very lively and influential game.”

Stoke boss Tony Pulis, meanwhile, was pleased with his side’s first-half effort but felt let down by their defence in allowing Van Persie in.

“We’re disappointed by the second and third goals,” Pulis told the BBC. “If you look at it we could have done better on both goals. That’s a disappointment.”

“We’ve done fine for an hour. The second goal was going to be vital, and they got it. From that point onwards it was a very, very tall order for us.”

“My concern was that they got round the back of us maybe a little bit too easily at times.”