For years Robin Van Persie has been one of the top players in the world. Despite his elite goal scoring abilities, the Dutchman has been unable to win any championship with any squad. The closest the striker has ever come to a win is a victory at the FA Cup with Arsenal and a win in the UEFA Cup with Feyenoord. Otherwise he has come up empty.
With 74 points, Manchester United is currently 15 points ahead of second place Manchester City for the top spot in the Premier league. While there still a few games to go, it is becoming increasingly clear that Manchester will likely win the title and with it, Van Persie will finally be cleansed of the "pain" he has been feeling.
"I'm really thrilled about it. Not winning titles has given me quite some pain and it has made me greyer," he admitted according to The Guardian.
He is wary that there is still a long way to go before he can claim victory. "It still has to happen. We have to go to Sunderland and West Ham, and we have to play Chelsea [in Monday's FA Cup quarter-final replay] and if we win, we play back-to-back against City in the league and the FA Cup semi-final," he explained. "Then we have Stoke. These are not summer-night games. I watched United drop the lead last season but it's getting awfully close now, and I'm really happy with that."
In the process, Van Persie has listened to stories from teammate Rio Ferdinand about how he suffered while waiting for his first championship. "He told me there was a time he thought he'd never become champion. He was becoming totally crazy because of it," Van Persie revealed. "But he told me, 'If you get the first one ... well man, that tastes so good and you only want more. That then becomes the standard, the only thing that counts. Anything less isn't good enough anymore.' Rio had to wait a long time before he became champion and so have I."
In order to secure that goal, Van Persie needs to wake up from a recent slump. Despite leading the team with 19 goals, Van Persie has just one tally in his last 10 games for United, including six premier league matches. That drought followed a stretch in which the Dutchman scored 10 goals in 10 games for Manchester.
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