By Oliver Platt
Manchester United striker Robin van Persie says he is “floating on a cloud” after becoming a Premier League champion for the first time in his career.
Van Persie spent eight seasons at Arsenal but needed to move north to join the Red Devils to experience a title win in the English top flight.
The Dutchman revealed that he plans to make space at home for pictures of the trophy celebrations after it is presented to Sir Alex Ferguson’s team on Sunday against Swansea.
“I’ve had to wait a long time to be a champion and it’s even nicer than I thought, it tastes lovely,” Van Persie told the Mirror.
“I feel like I’m floating on a cloud. This is the feeling you dream of. Everything is about lifting the trophy.
“There were some great pictures taken after the Aston Villa game, on the pitch and in the dressing room, but there was one thing missing from them all – the trophy.
“That’s the picture that will be framed in my house – me lifting the Premier League trophy. I can’t wait for that moment.
“With Feyenoord, I was close, but never a champion. As a youth player though, I was used to winning trophies, right through from Under-12s to Under-18s.
“We won the UEFA Cup at Feyenoord three months after I started and I remember thinking, ‘OK this will happen every year, winning trophies is part of being a footballer’.
“I won the Dutch Cup the next year, but I’ve realised since then it’s not that simple.”
Van Persie leads the Premier League goalscoring charts having struck 25 times so far this season but, remarkably, the 29-year-old has only scored once in front of Old Trafford’s famous Stretford End.
“I don’t know why that is,” he conceded. “I’ve scored quite a few goals in the second half at Old Trafford, but it just so happened that we’d changed ends after we had been attacking the Stretford End in the first half.
“I don’t understand it. I promise I will score more goals at the Stretford End. I’m aware of the statistic and it’s time to change it.”
The Netherlands international looks likely to claim his second consecutive Golden Boot award following Luis Suarez’s season-ending suspension but insisted that the title was the reward he would treasure most.
“Even if I’d scored half the number of goals and we’d won the league, I’d have been happy,” he said. “But the Golden Boot would be like a bonus.
“In a way it’s not an honest award, even if you end up with the most goals in a season, because those goals are the team’s goals and many will have been made possible by other players.
“They should make a Golden Boot for the whole team.”
