Van Persie fires reminder to Dutch boss

Robin van Persie hopes he has done enough to start for Holland in their quarter-final after scoring his second goal of Euro 2008 last night.

Van Persie, who missed so much of Arsenal's season due to knee and thigh injuries, played the full 90 minutes in a victory that maintained Holland's 100 per cent record in the tournament.

He scored with a trademark thumping left-foot shot, adding to the goal he scored as a substitute against France.

Now the striker is praying he has done enough to stay in the side when Holland face either Sweden or Russia in the last eight on Saturday.

He said: "Of course I want to start the game, every player does. But there is a lot of competition with the strikers here - which you can see from the fact we have scored nine goals already in three games.

"I would like to play but I will respect the decision of the manager. Whatever he decides I will give everything I can to help the team."

Van Persie has extra reason to want to make an impact in the finals after suffering so much frustration during the season.

"Being injured so much wasn't easy," he added. "But right now I feel good and it's good to be fit at such a big tournament."

With Holland making nine changes to their starting line-up, Romania wasted a great chance to get the win they needed to reach the quarter-finals.

But defender Cosmin Contra blamed Adrian Mutu's penalty miss in Friday's 1-1 draw with Italy for their early exit.

"This penalty is the reason we are going home," said Contra. "We had an opportunity to beat the World Cup winners in the 81st minute and didn't take it. We will think about this penalty a lot. We will think about it when we go home, we will think about it in our sleep."