Van Persie predicting great things

Robin van Persie always had a feeling Arsenal would come good this season and reckons Arsene Wenger's young Gunners can develop into the unstoppable force of English football.

The Dutchman was on target against Steaua Bucharest last night to ensure a ninth straight win for the Premier League leaders.  They maintained their perfect start in Europe and put themselves in the driving seat to qualify for the Champions League knockout stages.

It has certainly been an impressive opening two months of the new campaign by a squad which was supposed to struggle without the services of talisman Thierry Henry, who left for Barcelona during the summer.

Arsenal have now matched the record of successive victories set by the 'Invincibles' team of 2003-04, although manager Wenger has been quick to play down talk of any comparisons just yet.

Van Persie, though, is certainly not surprised by the start this Arsenal side have made, and could sense something special was on the horizon when he returned early to pre-season training following his recovery from a broken metatarsal.

"At the start of the season I said we will surprise and everyone was laughing," said the 24-year-old Dutchman.

"Now 12 games into the season, everyone says, 'Ooh, look at Arsenal, they are a good team'. This I knew before and my mind has not changed.

"I started training early this season with Theo \[Walcott] and after, when the rest of the lads came back in, I saw a great togetherness and belief and big quality. This is what I saw day in, day out.

"I can understand the views of the fans and the press because they are not there every day but I am and I saw this from early on."

Van Persie declared: "If we can stay together we can do amazing stuff in the future. We are progressing every week we play.

"If we just play our normal game, not many teams can stop us. We can win trophies. Why not? This is our aim. If we win a trophy, we are a good team. If we miss it, we are not a bad team. We will just have missed it."