Arsenal just proved Rafael van der Vaart wrong in emphatic fashion

Former Tottenham player Rafael van der Vaart claims that Arsenal do not have any world-class players.

Arsenal just beat Tottenham 4-1 in the North London derby to lead the aggregate scores for the North London derby this season by 8-2. If you don't count that as a demolition, then nothing is a demolition.

Arsenal were far and away the better team on both nights and it came down to these players playing great football for as long as possible to make sure that they could put the draw against Wolves behind them and finally get back to winning ways in the Premier League.

Arsenal need to keep winning in the Premier League to have a shot at winning the title come May and it is certain that if they win every single game till May, that includes the game against Manchester City, then they will win the Premier League. This cannot be done without a bunch of superstars.

Van der Vaart has just said that there are no superstars on this team, which makes little to no sense.

He said: "Arsenal do not have any world class players – I agree with Wayne Rooney. Perhaps it is better to say that Arsenal have ‘stars’ in their team – they have really good players, but nobody is world class. 

“To be a world-class footballer, it’s not just about your performances, you need the attitude on the pitch. When I look at this Arsenal team, they are all ‘Ideal son-in-law’s,’ as we say in Dutch – they can play well but I don’t think any would succeed if they went to Real Madrid because the mentality is much harder and there is a lot more pressure.

“I don’t think Arsenal are strong enough to compete on all fronts and challenge for the treble or quadruple. Obviously, when you are still in all competitions, the hope is there, but to win everything, that is too difficult.”

There is a case to be made that some of these players are on the cusp of becoming superstars and world-class players, but they're not quite there yet.

But if you look at players like Gabriel, William Saliba and Rice, they are world-class players. Any team in the world would benefit from having those three players in their starting XI.

Van der Vaart talks about Real Madrid; Saliba and Gabriel both would start for the Spanish giants if they joined them tomorrow. There is a reason why Real Madrid were thinking of signing Saliba until he renewed his contract last year.

You can say that there aren't that many superstars on this team, and that would be a fair opinion. But saying that there's not a single world-class player on the entire team shows that these players are very underrated.

Rice is a matchwinner, he's a mentality monster, and he's done so much for this Arsenal team since he's joined the club. Apart from that one mistake that he made leading up to the goal against Tottenham, there's not much that he's done wrong all season.

He's been this team's best player by an absolute landslide, and to call him anything less than world-class would be an insult to what he's achieved so far.

Arsenal have at least two or three world-class players and two or three further players who are on the cusp of being world-class. If people don't believe that, they can argue with a pole.