Robin van Persie bagged a magnificent first-half hat-trick to fire Manchester United to their 20th Premier League title with a 3-0 win over Aston Villa, and they are now 6/4 favourites to retain it next season.
The writing was on the wall for Villa right from the kick-off last night as it took Van Persie took just 81 seconds to sweep home Ryan Giggs’ knock-back.
The Dutchman then scored one of the best goals of the entire campaign as he followed Wayne Rooney’s long ball throughout its 50-yard flight, waited for it to fall out of the sky then smashed a first-time volley into the corner for a simply sensational goal.
He then bagged his third 12 minutes from the break when Giggs unselfishly passed to him in the box for him to calmly bang into the top left hand corner of the net.
From then on the Red Devils were in total control, and knew that they had got their hands back on the silverware taken from them by arch rivals City.
The party then started at the final whistle, with Sir Alex Ferguson and Giggs left to celebrate their 13th title and ex-Gunner Robin van Persie his first.
“It didn’t really matter who scored as long as we won this game and we did win this game,” said the former Arsenal forward on Sky Sports 1. “From the first minute everyone played well and everyone wanted it. It was a great to score so early and it was a fantastic game of football. “I’m very happy but it’s weird. I had to wait for so long for my first title and it’s a great feeling.”
Sir Alex, 71, compared the impact he had made at the club to that of Eric Cantona.
He said: “In terms of impact he has as big as an impact as anyone I can imagine. Cantona was an incredible impact player and I have been very, very lucky, I have had some fantastic strikers right through, probably 10 great strikers at the club.
“He has made a fantastic contribution to our season.”