Per Mertesacker is a dude. I don’t care if you don’t think so. Go somewhere and make a lame joke about his ‘turning circle’ for all I care.

What I know is that he was brilliant on Saturday when we won the FA Cup by beating Chelsea 2-1.

Sure, Diego Costa scored, and saw another effort saved by David Ospina, but for the most part the Arsenal defence kept him quiet and that was quite deliberate according to the club captain.

“We went to work on Diego Costa,” he said. “Rob was giving him a really hard time. I kept patting him on the back, being friendly, while Rob kept on talking to him.

“A good double act. It was very exciting to see how quickly things can turn. What was really important was that we kept on running with Costa, to make sure those long balls didn’t get to him.

“We were prepared for that. Especially when Fabregas came on, we were ready to run back to cut out those long balls over the top that he plays.

“You have to say it couldn’t have gone much better for us. The team’s performance was incredible.

“I don’t know how many would have expected that.”

You’ve gotta say that’s lovely. The good cop, bad cop routine with a 21 year old as the bad cop is just wonderful.

ROB HOLDING, YOU KNOOOOOOOOOOW …