Van Persie: Rooney and me are a unique and unpredictable strikeforce

Manchester United striker Robin Van Persie has claimed that his partnership with Wayne Rooney will go from strength to strength, insisting to MUTV that they both realise that they are better as a pairing than as individuals. The pair have yet to strike up a real understanding on the pitch since Van Persie’s summer 2012 move from Arsenal, with Rooney often playing second fiddle to the Dutchman under Sir Alex Ferguson. However, with Rooney starting the season with eight league goals in his 13 appearances, Van Persie insists that the pair can work as a duo.

“It’s the interaction together, it’s that we both want to play together”, he said. We realise that we are better off playing together because we are stronger as a partnership.”

“With a player of Wayne’s calibre we can go from strength to strength and become even better than we are now.”

“Lately we’ve been playing really well together, we’ve been setting up goals for each other, we are both scoring, which is what I want.”

“It is important that this partnership is growing and becoming even stronger.”

The Dutchman, who has been linked with a move away from Old Trafford in recent weeks, continued by arguing that the pair’s skillsets complement each other, and that they have the ingredients to work well together.

“We are both ‘nine-and-a-halves’, we can play high up front, we can drop, it is an extra quality we both have which is quite rare.

“If you look around you have loads of main strikers, target men, ‘foxes in the boxes’, and you have ‘number 10s’ who are dropping in more and it’s very obvious.

“With us it’s not obvious, we can both do that job.

“Wayne is doing it a bit more because he’s playing behind me but we can both do it so we can change the game if it’s needed.”