It absolutely was difficult to see Robin van Persie's term on Monday morning. He'd just obtained a trick to secure a 20th top-flight title for Manchester United and spent some time dancing around the pitch at Old Trafford chanting "Champi-oooo-nes"! with his teammates before being collared by it cameras. Could he placed into words how he felt at that moment, they wondered. "Well, very happy," he explained, a breaking across his face, "but it's strange, you realize. I had to wait for way too long for my first title." The smile did not disappear, but there clearly was a moment's pause -- perhaps just a nano-moment, but apparent none the less -- as he surveyed the stands. Perhaps he was just attempting to take it all in, to agree to memory every sound and picture of the night that he'd waited way too long for. But maybe there was a quick pang of disappointment at the information that he could not have feasted on these snacks at Arsenal. He appeared to repeat the thought behind his move last summer; here, when he spoke again, he was section of a group adjusted to gain. "It is simply fantastic, with a fantastic team, fantastic players," he said, gesturing around him. "It is really a title for every single one of them. This really is our 20th concept, and I believe deserved." As fate would have it, United's first match as winners are at Arsenal on Sunday. Before kickoff the Arsenal players can make to form a of honor to applaud United's players, one of them today Van Persie, onto the pitch. Inevitably the question came. Just how much was he looking forward to as a champion? time for the Emirates "Let me first love this particular moment," he explained diplomatically, accepting the match ball and the man of the match prize before rejoining the parties far from the cameras. The Emirates is definitely the last ground that Van Persie might have wanted to visit this week-end. Although declaration announcing his decision never to increase the agreement that might have come to an end come july 1st recommended some long-running worries -- "It has again become clear if you ask me that we in lots of aspects disagree along the way Arsenal FC must move forward" -- additionally, it made apparent how strongly Van Persie thought about Arsenal. "I enjoy the fans and the club, no matter what happens." PODCAST: Suarez's ban, Winners League, EPL They certainly were not useless platitudes. Van Persie was nearly to turn 26 when he signed a brand new agreement by the end of the 2008-09 season, his 2nd as Arsenal's top scorer. "I just can not picture myself in an alternative shirt," he explained, as the club announced an offer to keep him there until at least his 30th birthday. While on holiday that summer he reflected on your decision. "If you look at other players who can change lives, their finest years are always from oblique 25 to 30-ish," he explained. "I gave my most readily useful years to Arsenal, ostensibly, and this is one way i'd like it." What sort of word of such satisfaction must have come to hurt within the years that people -- baseball fans, the media, broadcasters -- mentioned Arsenal's trophyless years ever higher. In '09 he was developing into Thierry Henry's sneakers, increasingly the embodiment of the best of Arsenal under Arsene Wenger; by last summer he should have felt increasingly like he was all that was left of it. Team building? The high-profile movements of Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor to Manchester City in 2009 were repeated in 2011 with the revenue of Gael Clichy and Samir Nasri. Cesc Fabregas finally went to Barcelona, to be joined by Alex Song a couple of days after Van Persie signed at Old Trafford. The choice of Manchester United was uncomfortable for Arsenal fans, who had at least been in a position to chastise them for being money-grabbers and sneer at their alumni at the Etihad. In picking United, Van Persie made things harder. It was so clearly a choice inspired by successful awards while he was still in his primary that to more seriously, to criticize their particular club criticize him was also, and probably. Van Persie had reached the conclusion that the final of his "best years" would be wasted on Arsenal. After the surprise and disappointment, the anger and the resentment, Arsenal supporters had the group left out to worry about. Without Van Persie's 30 group targets in 2011-12, they calculated, Arsenal could have been over 25 items worse off, languishing about 15th place. Although Arsenal had coped without Van Persie at frequent intervals when he was hurt before, these amounts did actually signal disaster. WAHL: Bundesliga dominance, Landon Donovan, more mail Yet Arsenal has coped again. None of Olivier Giroud, Lukas Podolski and Santi Cazorla, who all appeared last summertime, is in the same course as Van Persie, but between them they've a lot more than accounted for the Dutchman's targets. Collection is two hits worse off than at this point last period, Van Persie's most prolific. Cazorla's 12 goals and seven assists, as well as his understanding with Jack Wilshere, bode well. Mikel Arteta has not scored more goals than last year, but he has scored goals of greater value, providing winners on three occasions, and with his latest, a charge taken under massive pressure against Norwich City, helped restore Arsenal's advantage in the chase for Champions League sites (3. Collection (63), 4. Chelsea (62), 5. Spurs (61). Theo Walcott still seems short of the gamer people thought he'd be right now, but only Chelsea's Juan Mata can better his 11 goals and 10 assists this year. How much with this is just a comfort to Arsenal fans is unclear, while there is already so much disappointment at the club's transfer policies. The question of "what if Van Persie had stayed?" is moot because that will most likely have precluded one or more of last summer's signings. The question of "what if Arsenal was paying $30 million-plus on individual players, as opposed to only trying to sell them at that price?" nags, too. Could Arsenal do more than tread water in the Premier League, always in the Champions League but seldom in danger of earning it, with that type of investment? (Optimism with this summer might shrivel at Wenger's entry that Chelsea's potential spending under a brand new boss frightens him.) That's part of why applauding United onto the message at the Emirates can hurt. It'd been some time as a classic Alex Ferguson part since anybody had talked of United, but his group only missed out on protecting the name last period in the final minutes of the final time, on goal difference. From that place Ferguson closed Van Persie for $37 million, plus Shinji Kagawa, a with Borussia Dortmund, for another $18.5 million as well as the others, and has this season won the concept with four games to spare -- 16 points clear of City, 21 ahead of Arsenal, and with a goal huge difference remarkably better than everyone else else's. And the director is crediting van Persie. "He is been unbelievable," said Ferguson, who also explained Monday's volley, a trademark over-the-shoulder-and-bam! Hit, as "goal of the century." "I believe that he has to take a lot of the credit. I believe his targets tell you that, his effectiveness amounts told you that. In as any player I could imagine," Ferguson mentioned, mentioning Eric Cantona, who served United from mid-table to the concept in the 1992-93 period terms of impact, he's made as large an impact. "But I'm sure Robin would be saying exactly what a great bunch of players he is had with him," said the United manager. Whether he intended a small on the people Van Persie put aside, the language spread like salt scattered over an open wound. HONIGSTEIN: How Dortmund took down Real Madrid
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