Robin van Persie brilliance for Arsenal sweeps aside sorry Wigan

Roberto Martínez had joked on Friday that playing Arsenal yet again could not be good for his health. This was his Wigan Athletic team's third meeting with them since 30 November and he might have felt the cold sweats as Arsenal threatened to run riot. The manager's only comfort could be that the final scoreline hinted at respectability. In truth, there was little of it for his outclassed visitors.

The result was rarely in doubt, with Arsenal vastly superior in all areas. Robin van Persie might have scored six times alone, but he contented himself with the hat-trick that took his tally to seven in five matches and reinforced Arsène Wenger's assertion that he is finally at 100% fit, after an ankle-ligament injury undermined the first half of his season. A missed penalty on 70 minutes was the blot on his afternoon.

The mercy for Wigan, perhaps, was that so few of their supporters had travelled to London. Only the goalkeeper Ali al-Habsi put in a performance of anything like the required standard, although he did excel himself, particularly in the first-half when Arsenal were, to quote Wenger, "outstanding". The contrast to his opposite number, Wojciech Szczesny, who was almost a spectator, was stark.

Arsenal continue to feel that a silver-lined finish to the Premier League season is a possibility. Wenger said beforehand that the title was in their hands and his team's home form would be decisive. They could tick another one off here. Emphatically. "We feel stronger and stronger with every game," Wenger said.

Martínez admitted his team had played with "a feeling of fear" in the first half. He joked that he would have substituted all 10 of his outfield players if he could. He called it a "painful experience and a painful lesson". But his complaints about how the excellent Cesc Fábregas won the penalty, which led to a straight red card for the Wigan captain, Gary Caldwell, felt misguided and a little mischievous. Fábregas was caught by Caldwell, after he had stolen on to Alex Song's through ball.

"Cesc knows how to buy a decision off the referee," Martínez said of his fellow Spaniard. "It comes from a different culture. You don't cheat if you take a decision out of the referee, it's just being clever. In England, that is cheating, but not in Spain, Italy and South America. Cesc was very clever."

Fábregas was at the heart of the game's best moment. His long ball was weighted to perfection over Caldwell's head and Van Persie crashed a left-footed volley first time past Habsi for Arsenal's second.

Habsi had kept his team in it. He saved in eye-catching style in the first half from Samir Nasri, Van Persie and Fábregas twice. Theo Walcott was also guilty of a classic piece of Arsenal over-elaboration. Clean through, he opted to square to Fábregas rather than shoot and Mohamed Diamé made a saving tackle. For the opening goal Song had played in Van Persie who lashed the ball home.

Wigan were brighter after the interval, but Van Persie's second goal killed any outlandish hopes of a comeback. The Dutchman blazed his penalty over the crossbar and he also clipped the outside of the post with a curling shot, but he would go home with the match ball after a late poacher's strike.

Source: David Hytner, The Guardian on 22 Jan 11