Robin van Persie: Striker has played a central role in Arsenal's revival this season
Arsenal captain Robin van Persie has warned his side not to get caught up on Premier League positions this early in the season.
Fired by the 19 goals of the in-form Dutchman, Arsene Wenger's
side have recorded seven wins from their last eight league games ahead of Sunday's trip to Manchester City.The north London side have quickly climbed back to within striking distance of the top four following an appalling start to the campaign.
Open
Inflicting a second straight defeat on the high-flying Blues would reduce the gap on the summit down to just six points, although Manchester United could overtake their rivals if they win at QPR earlier in the day.Van Persie
believes Arsenal must always aim for the top but believes positions count for nothing at this point in the season due to the open nature of the top-flight."We should have higher expectations every week, but for now because we have only played 15 games in the league we are not even halfway," Van Persie
told Arsenal Player."I don't think it's clever to be excited by fourth, fifth, sixth or whatever. We still have to play many games.
"So many things can happen - you see that Spurs lost three points last week, Chelsea
beat Manchester City."It is an open league and anything can happen. Lots of stuff will happen that is surprising so we have to make sure that we are on the good side and actually surprise people with our results."
Van Persie feels Arsenal have turned their season around through sheer hard work following a humiliating 8-2 defeat at Manchester United on August 28th.
The Gunners skipper added: "Everybody had written us off to come back from something like that and weren't speaking positively about us.
"To bounce back from a period like that you can say that everybody earns some credit because we had to dig deep - trust me."
Resilience
Arsenal showed their new-found resilience when they won 5-3 at Chelsea - where City lost 2-1 last Monday night.Van Persie is looking forward to another challenge on Sunday, adding: "It's going to be a big test but we have played against world-class sides before - nobody really expected us to beat Chelsea 5-3 away, but we did it.
"I don't see why we can't surprise again. We're having a good run. Everybody is confident and believes in themselves. The spirit is as high as it can get."