Persie admits Gunners were inferior to Manchester United

After Sunday's 2-8 humiliation, Arsenal skipper Robin Van Persie admits Gunners were inferior to Manchester United

After Sunday's 2-8 humiliation, Arsenal skipper Robin Van Persie admits Gunners were inferior to Manchester United

Arsenalu00a0 captainu00a0 Robin van Persie has called on his teammates to recover quickly after Sunday's 8-2 humiliation at the hands of Manchester United.


Arsenal's Robin van Persie after Sunday's 2-8 thrashing by Manchester
United in the EPL. PIC/Afp

A makeshift Gunners lineup was ripped to shreds by a rampant United at Old Trafford, with Wayne Rooney netting a hat-trick, Ashley Young bagging a brace and Danny Welbeck, Nani and Park Ji-Sung piling further misery and pressure on a beleaguered Arsene Wenger. Van Persie believes that, despite the north Londoners' lengthy list of absentees, there can be no excuses for such a defeat and is adamant his side must get a positive result when they welcome Swansea City to the Emirates Stadium in a fortnight's time.

"We need to come back," the Gunners captain told Arsenal Player. "We have Swansea in two weeks, which is a good opponent and I look forward to that. This was the strongest team we had today. We gave our maximum but it was clearly not good enough.

"I don't think we can hide behind injuries or suspensions. It is no excuse. They had injuries too, this is football."

One of the only positives for Arsenal on a catastrophic day was the behaviour of their travelling fans. They remained in fine voice until the final whistle at Old Trafford despite the extremely difficult circumstances, and Van Persie was keen to pay tribute to them for their support.u00a0 "The fans were great. That is one really positive thing. They were cheering us up all game for 90 minutes. We really appreciate that. Sometimes you see fans leaving early but I did not see that. When we went to the fans to thank them after the game, it looked like every seat was still full," he said.