It was a goal of such ruthless brilliance that with one swish of his left foot at 8.13pm on Monday night, Robin van Persie settled the argument once and for all for Manchester United, champions for the 20th time.
The best team in the league? Undoubtedly. The outstanding player of the season? It has to be Van Persie, having scored what will surely be the goal of the season on the way to his hat-trick last night, a strike of such breathtaking geometry that any team in the world would have been hard pushed to defend against it.
The league season is an examination of a club’s credentials over the course of 38 games but sometimes that season is distilled in the space of a few seconds. Those few seconds were those that it took for Wayne Rooney’s beautifully flighted ball from inside his own half to drop out of the air and over the shoulder of Van Persie – and then for him to drive it past Brad Guzan first time with that sublime left foot.
Oh, how I long for the old Arsenal when both Thierry Henry and van Persie were playing there. English football at its grandest (even if neither Henry nor van Persie are British).
Keith Töpfer