Van Persie: Controversial leveller

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Arsenal striker Robin van Persie has conceded he was 'a little bit offside' for his equaliser at Chelsea on Sunday.

The Dutchman strayed into an offside position before scoring the first of two goals in a vital turnaround against the Blues.

Chelsea boss Luiz Felipe Scolari has hit out at the misjudgement by the linesman and called for referee Mike Dean to apologise.

Van Persie, though, has pointed to a clash between the two London clubs when he had a seemingly onside goal ruled out.

Disallowed

He said in the Evening Standard: "I scored a goal against Chelsea (in a 2-0 home defeat in December 2005). I was onside, but the ref gave it offside and it didn't count.

"This time was maybe a little bit offside, but it counted and that's all that matters."

Meanwhile, Van Persie's strike partner, Emmanuel Adebayor, has hailed the importance of the scalp that hauled them to within seven points of the leaders.

The Togo forward said: "It is a very big win because we went through a lot of difficult moments and people wrote us off in the Premier League. Now this is a message that we have sent out.

Dreams

"We believe in ourselves, we can do something. Forget about what happened - we are always together. We always believed we can do something and these are the kind of results we can show again.

"Now everyone can see we have kept our title dreams alive and the more important thing now is to keep going."