Robin va Persie has made an explosive start to his career at Manchester United. After starting on the bench against Everton and not managing a shot in his cameo off of the bench he has now smashed four goals in 202 minutes averaging a goal every 50.5 minutes. If you look at the time played when starting he’s averaging a goal every 45 minutes – a goal per half!

His remarkable statistics began with his first start – the first shot of his Manchester United career, with his trusted left foot, ended up in the back of the net and wasn’t it a beauty? Unbelievably that was the only shot he managed against Fulham so he finished the game with 100% accuracy and 100% chance conversion!

He wasn’t going to finish there was he? No one could write the script against Southampton where United went behind not once, but twice to the newly promoted side. First he equalised and then when he had the chance to repeat the feat – he went for the fashionable “Panenka” penalty and replays showed that he rued his decision immediately after striking it. That was until he actually got the equaliser through a bit of fortune where Ferdinand’s header struck the post and fell directly at the striker’s foot. He duly despatched it.

Nothing fortunate about his hat-trick goal though, it was his best of the day – a brilliant header into the far corner which completed the comeback for Manchester United and was also his 100th goal in the Premier League. After missing the penalty Robin showed his class by not letting the disappointment get to him and pushing on to achieve a victory for his new side.

As the stats show above – Robin van Persie has launched himself to the #1 rank on our websites Top Attack stats page for 2012/13 when sorted by Minutes per Goal for more than 5 shots attempted. Michu (Miguel Perez Cuesta) had been top for the first two weeks scoring goals in each of Swansea’s three games and Carlos Tevez has also maintained a goal per game for Manchester City. However Robin van Persie has only played just over two games and he already has four goals and it should really be five with the penalty.

The Top Goals Stats Page for 2012/13 shows that Michu and Robin van Persie both prefer their left foot and have scored with their head whilst Carlos Tevez is scoring with either foot. Both Tevez and van Persie have scored all their goals inside the box so far and Michu has one of his goals from outside the box. None of them have scored via Penalty as yet. This page is a good one to keep an eye on further on in the season to analyse where the “Top” players get their goals from.

So all the signs point to Robin van Persie scoring even more goals at Manchester United should he stay fit. Another 30 goals this season?