Van Persie: I hate not scoring

Striker Robin van Persie has admitted that not being able to add to his World Cup goal tally so far is playing on his mind. The Dutch international only has one goal to his name in South Africa.

The 27-year-old has been a regular for the Oranje though, helping to provide one assist and score the goal that helped Holland progress to the knockout stages.

His disappointment at being substituted when playing against Slovakia was obvious for all to see, and he explained that he felt there was space to exploit in the Slovakian defence as they pushed forward for an equaliser.

van Persie said: "I am not scoring and that eats away at me – at every striker, I think. I've had a few small chances. I just want to score.

"But one thing I learned in England is that you can miss chances or have a bad first touch, but as a striker there will always be another chance.

"I wanted to finish the game. I thought they would take risks in the last 10 minutes and I wanted to exploit that. I could see spaces opening up and I wanted to use them, so I was a bit shocked when I had to go off."

The Netherlands take on five time champions Brazil in tomorrow's mouth-watering quarter-final clash.

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