Rafael van der Vaart is adamant that Tottenham will finish ahead of the Gunners - although he admits he is slightly concerned by the form of his countryman Robin van Persie
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Rafael van der Vaart says there is “no chance” that Arsenal will finish above Tottenham this season after Spurs’ sixth win from seven games yesterday.
A 3-1 win over QPR at White Hart Lane took the Lilywhites’ tally to 19 points from a possible 21 in the Premier League.
Spurs’ victory also took them three points clear of Arsenal, with a game in hand. And Van der Vaart, who scored his sixth goal in five games against Neil Warnock’s Rangers, is adamant that Tottenham will finish ahead of their north London rivals.
“Can Arsenal finish above us? No. No chance,” he said. “We’re better. They’ve had some good results recently but we’ve also got six wins and one draw now. I’m not afraid of them. I think we are the better squad, we have a bigger squad. But it’s a long season.”
The Dutchman admits that he is slightly concerned by the form of his countryman Robin van Persie though, as the Gunners striker’s hat-trick at Chelsea on Saturday took his tally to 28 goals in 27 league games in 2011.
“He’s doing even better than me, but I love to see him scoring because he’s a great player and I know him well from the national team,” said Van der Vaart. “I was really enjoying it on Saturday.
“Of course I’m in touch with him. I texted him after the game to say: ‘Congratulations. Maybe it would help if you can stop scoring like that, it might be a problem for us.”
While Spurs still sit outside the top four today on goal difference, their latest victory leaves them level on points with third-placed Chelsea and just four points behind Manchester United – with games in hand on everyone around them.
And Van der Vaart feels that Tottenham now have the quality to keep pace with the Premier League’s biggest teams.
“It’s still early, there’s still a long way to go, but I think we’re much better than last season, he said. “Last season we dropped too many points against these kind of teams, like QPR.
“We have a good feeling and this club wants to be in the top four. We’re working hard, we’ve got new players and they’re really important players for us. For me, to be scoring goals is especially good.
“Just at the moment I think Man City is the best team in the league, and after Man City we have a lot of good teams, and we’re one of them.”
Van der Vaart is predicting problems for Roberto Mancini’s league leaders at some point though.
“We can only speak in the moment, now. At this moment they are really good, they are winning games easily, and the way they played against Man United was impressive, but they’re also a difficult team – there’s a lot of egos, so maybe there’s going to be a problem,” he said.
“Of course there’s a problem when you’ve got too many big stars. We had that at Real Madrid. When you play for a big team and they buy a lot of big players then a lot of players are also unhappy.
“You see that [Emmanuel] Adebayor is a big player for us, but he was not even in Man City’s squad. He was training with the youngsters and that shows you everything. He’s a great player and he wasn’t even allowed to train with them.”
Rafael van der Vaart is adamant that Tottenham will finish ahead of the Gunners - although he admits he is slightly concerned by the form of his countryman Robin van Persie
A 3-1 win over QPR at White Hart Lane took the Lilywhites’ tally to 19 points from a possible 21 in the Premier League.
Spurs’ victory also took them three points clear of Arsenal, with a game in hand. And Van der Vaart, who scored his sixth goal in five games against Neil Warnock’s Rangers, is adamant that Tottenham will finish ahead of their north London rivals.
“Can Arsenal finish above us? No. No chance,” he said. “We’re better. They’ve had some good results recently but we’ve also got six wins and one draw now. I’m not afraid of them. I think we are the better squad, we have a bigger squad. But it’s a long season.”
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MF Cunt
Lol we are grinding out very good performances without three of our best players who will all pick up the pace come Jan
Unlux
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TF S4DK
Thanks for the extra motivation Rafael.
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