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The Dutchman scored twice in the 4-0 win over Wigan to bring his personal tally to 16 goals this season, but he had high praise for the "special" side assembled at Old Trafford

Robin van Persie has lauded his Manchester United team-mates in the wake of Tuesday's 4-0 win over Wigan, insisting he is "surrounded by champions" at the club.

The Dutch striker scored twice in the victory, with fellow forward Chicharito also grabbing a double at the DW Stadium as the Red Devils maintained their seven-point lead at the top of the Premier League table.

And as Sir Alex Ferguson's side look to bring the title back to Old Trafford, Van Persie has hailed the work ethic and "special" quality of his new team.

“This is a special team,” he told MUTV. “Everybody wants to help each other. Everybody's keen for everyone to score. Defenders are working their socks off for the midfielders, the midfielders are working for the strikers... everybody wants to run and everybody has one target in their mind.

“We have to look at it game by game but everybody wants to be champions. I feel that I'm surrounded by champions. They know how to win and that makes it really easy for me.”

The 29-year-old reserved praise in particular for Mexican strike partner Chicharito, who played a key role as Van Persie took his tally to 16 Premier League goals this season.

“[Javier and I] scored two goals each and he gave a really good pass for my first goal," he added. "It was a good goal because every single touch was the right touch, in my opinion.

“The first one was a little behind me and I had to drag it onto my left foot. That was a good touch. Then I waited for the guy to slide in, had a good touch inside and then a quick finish. Three touches but all good touches.

“It was a very good performance we scored the goals at the right time. We've played Wigan twice this year and won 4-0 both times, so that's good for goal difference.

“Everybody's helping each other and everybody wants to share the goals. Look at the last goal – Danny wanted to give the ball to me so I could score. Everybody's like that. I'm like that, Chicha is like that... everybody wants to share the goals and that, in my opinion, is the way to score heaps of goals.

“Hopefully we can keep it going. We’ve had a couple of games where we've had high scores but we want to score even more goals because that could be vital come the end of the season.”