VIDEO: Robin van Persie has missed. I repeat, Robin van Persie has missed PLUS Tokelo Rantie on his debut

Nerves, nails and underpants: all you need to know about the final round of Premier League action today

Gunner be tough: How I may look on eTV tomorrow morning

For those frantically chewing nails before the Premier League finale, some facts:

1 If QPR hold Manchester City to a draw today and United win, Sir Alex takes his 13^th title.

2 If QPR fail as expected and Sunderland lose to United, City take it on goal difference.

3 If both Manchester giants win (or lose), City win the title for the first time since 1968.

4 If Arsenal beat West Brom, they take third and a guaranteed Champions League spot.

5 If Spurs finish fourth, they must wait and see if Chelsea win in Munich.

6 The Blues will qualify for Europe if they lift the Champions League against Bayern.

7 Robin van Persie needs one goal to equal Alan Shearer’s record of 31 goals.

8 If Bolton win and QPR lose, the Hoops are relegated with Blackburn and Wolves.

9 If Spurs and Arsenal lose and Newcastle win, Alan Pardew completes his dream.

10 If Arsenal lose, I will wear underpants on my head on eTV Sunrise tomorrow.

Yes, d-day has dawned. At the top, middle and bottom of the most watchable football league in the world, fans are currently gathering with frayed nerves around the world.

In Manchester, as Nick Hornby might say, things are at fever pitch. Roberto Mancini’s expensive gathering of international stars, spearheaded by Yaya Toure, must win against QPR at the Etihad Stadium to guarantee their first championship since 1968, when Santa Claus was a lad.

Anything less than that – a draw or an unthinkable defeat – will leave the door wide open for United and Sir Alex Ferguson, who has won 12 of the 19 Premier League titles since the old First Division succumbed in 1992.

This morning, the BBC carry these quotes from City’s Argentine full-back Pablo Zabaleta: "We're only 90 minutes away from making history. If we succeed it is probably the start of a new era for this club."

More worrying than my underpants, Robert Mancini has promised to get a tattoo if City succeed.

United have dominated the Premier era, with Arsenal and Chelsea winning three each and Blackburn one since the dark, distant days of football highlights and terrestrial television coverage.

QPR are, of course, managed by one Mark Hughes. Sparky thrilled Old Trafford in his playing days and will be intent on producing the ultimate spring surprise against City, the club responsible for his unjust sacking and replacement by Mancini.

If the former United striker and City reject does the job and wins a point against City today, it will be perhaps the greatest shock in modern footballing history. But don’t bet against it.

A point will also secure Premier League status for QPR, who change managers more often than I change my Spiderman underpants.

If Bolton win against Stoke and QPR lose, the Hoops will join hopeless Wolves and Blackburn in League One next season.

Then we come to the battle for Champions League qualification, where a point could mean R200m today.

Arsenal are in poll position to take third place despite their woeful 3-3 draw against Norwich last week. Arsene Wenger has been unable to shore up his dodgy defence at the squeaky bottom end of the season and he faces a West Brom side saying farewell to new England boss Roy Hodgson today.

To find out my views on my old coach Woy, simply google “Neal Collins Roy Hodgson”. It’s gone global.

My desperate attempts to call Woy, who coached me when I was 13, have failed. He has no idea what a Baggies win will do to me. As a sideshow, Robin van Persie needs just one more goal to equal the Premier League record of 31.

And of course, if Spurs beat Fulham – and they should at White Hart Lane – Harry Redknapp and the Gooners’ arch-rivals will snatch third if Arsenal draw or lose. Lurking behind the pair of North London wannabes are Newcastle, who could take that third spot if they win at Everton and Spurs and Arsenal lose.

It’s all too much for some. I have promised to wear my nearly-unique and often-admired Spiderman underpants on my head tomorrow on eNews Sunrise’s Classic Play if Arsenal fail. If Mother’s Day prevents you from watching the action this afternoon at 3pm (4pm in South Africa) tune in tomorrow at 7.30am, DSTV channel 134 to find out. The underpants will be on my head. And I will be thoroughly miserable.

Should you miss that, try eNews and Collins Corner at 8.15am on DSTV 403. And read Neal and Pray in The New Age on Tuesday for the full extent of my misery. Arsene Wenger, please don’t do this to me.

You can follow me on www.twitter.com/nealcoland www.facebook.com/nealivorcollins.

The news every Gooner dreads: moneybags Manchester City keen on Robin van Persie

IT’S official. The news every Gooner has been dreading. Manchester City and their ridiculously rich backers have targeted Arsenal’s goalden Dutchman Robin van Persie. Arsene Wenger won’t be surprised. He’s already seen Kolo Toure, Emmanuel Adebayor, Gael Clichy and Samir Nasri head north to Eastlands, lured by the oil-soaked Dirhams on offer from Sheikh Mansour in Abu Dhabi. Arsenal’s bank balance may have improved, but as every Gooners knows, they’re struggling to compete without that handy quartet. Now Roberto Mancini, with his side top of the Premier League, had told The Sun in London: “All good teams are interested in him. At this moment, Robin van Persie is one of the best strikers in Europe with Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Sergio Aguero and Mario Balotelli.” Bloody Mancini. He’s already got Aguero and Balotelli on his books. Edin Dzeko isn’t bad. Adebayor is on loan at Spurs and Carlos Tevez is lurking somewhere in the twilight between an apology and Argentina. Five world class strikers is an expensive luxury. Six would be ridiculous. But Mancini is only too aware that without Van Persie, Arsenal would be taken out of the equation as a Premier League threat. With 25 goals this season, he leads the English goalscoring charts by seven from Wayne Rooney. Without those goals, Arsenal probably be languishing somewhere just blow the middle of the tables, with fans at the Emirates Stadium having a right go at Gervinho, Maroune Chamakh and Theo Walcott every week. Arsenal’s potential demise only encourages Mancini, who said: "We are interested in all good players. If there is a good player who wants to leave a club, then we are interested.” Mancini, like Pep Guardiola at Barcelona and Jose Mourinho if he stays at Real Madrid after winning La Liga this season, won’t be put off by Van Persie’s repeated claims of loyalty to Wenger. At 28, he’s out of contract at the end of 2013. The giants are waiting to swoop, with money no object if Van Persie doesn’t sign a new deal before the end of the winter. Mancini claims: "If Van Persie leaves I don't think he will be cheap because he has one year left on his contract. If, for example, you wanted to buy Napoli's Edinson Cavani he would be maybe £30million. "I think Van Persie will sign a new contract. He is Arsenal's best player and it is difficult for them to give him to another club. "I think he is a fantastic striker but I think he will remain with Arsenal." Then why talk about him at all Roberto?

My New Year resolutions

Some New Year resolutions:
1 Stop worrying about Robin van Persie's new contract.
2 Trust Jacques Kallis. I scored the first of my eight tons at 36.
3 Take it on the chin when he gets a ton at Newlands this week.
4 Take more road trips through South Africa, Garden Route and Meiringspoort were stunning.
5 Stop smoking. Fags may be cheap here but my lungs are expensive.
6 Leave the Peter Roebuck story alone. It's done. He's gone.
7 Leave my fellow sports journalists to their own devices. Enough already.
8 Make Scoop! South Africa's best-selling Sunday. There's a niche in the market.
9 Make Candidly Collins on eNews every Monday morning a must-watch.
10 Stop trying to bbq hamburgers and sausages. This is braai country.
11 Don't sound so smug when Chelsea and Man U lose. Only Spurs.
12 Don't got back to London for the 2012 Olympics. You know what the traffic will be like.
13 Erm.. .that's it. Any further suggestions below please!

2010 World Cup final preview: And the winner is... ubuntu

Today we should be talking football. It’s the World Cup final on Sunday, a billion people will be watching Soccer City and Holland or Spain will become the first new winners since France in 1998.

But suddenly, as this vibrant tournament draws to a close, I feel the need to talk ubuntu.

There are a lot of translations of this curious African word. The closest I can get appeared in the South African newspaper the Daily Dispatch this week. It says ubuntu is “the acceptance of others as parts of the sum total of each of us”. Some might just call it mutual respect. Others see it as a kind of warm, all-embracing African love story.

My dad, born in Portsmouth in 1933 but a resident of Pretoria since 1970, says ubuntu is: “Treating everyone like you’re all one big family.”

And that’s what we’ve had here isn’t it? From the opening concert at Soweto’s Super Stadium to that moment the World Cup turns orange or red on Sunday night. At outpouring of African affection.

Don’t confuse that with the massive support for Bafana Bafana early in this tournament. Or the outpouring of grief when fellow Africans Ghana were cruelly put out of the tournament at the quarter-final stage. It may have something to do with the incredible lack of animosity between fans here, the lack of real problems in a nation still growing.

Ubuntu is that feeling you get when you’re lost in South Africa expecting trouble from the group of lads up ahead... only to find gleaming smiles and offers of help.

Ubuntu is when you’re standing in a lengthy cue for the park-and-ride at Polokwane, and everybody wants to talk about Wayne Rooney rather than whinge about the delay.

Ubuntu is when you’re in Sandton trying to pay for parking, and the dodgy looking fellow in overalls comes over and uses his change to get you out.

Ubuntu is when you cower as a local comes rushing towards you in the dark outside Soccer City... and hugs you in sympathy because you’re wearing the Three Lions.

Ubuntu is when dozens gather round to help you blow your vuvuzela properly, and at the right time.

Ubuntu occurred even before the big kick-off on June 11 when, before the tournament began, Pretoria’s Blue Bulls were forced to play their Super 15 rugby final in Soweto because Loftus Versfeld had been booked by FIFA. Ubuntu reigned supreme for a fortnight among folk who have barely heard the term.

And when Adrian van der Bijl, a the prominent local businessman who owns Irene Lodge, the home of the USA in this tournament, left his mobile phone in a shebeen and thought it was lost, ubuntu ran through him when his wife’s cell rang. The shebeen workers had found his phone.

Ubuntu is Africa, despite a thousand years of pain.

American Shari Cohen, the international development worker who very publicly came out against this costly World Cup before it began, ended up admitting: “To say that I have been blown away at the hospitality South Africa has shown the rest of the world would be an understatement.”

And on the subject of ubuntu, she said, in an open letter published on the Huffington Post website: “South Africans are drinking deeply from the cup of humanity that has been brought to their doorstep. I would never imagine that an American World Cup or Olympics would ever be this welcoming to the rest of the world. And that saddens me for the state of my home country, but it also makes me feel the pride of the South African people.

“I will be leaving a little piece of myself here in South Africa. I just hope I have learned enough to bring back a little piece of ubuntu to my homeland ...

“When I think of ubuntu and my recent experiences here, I think America has much to learn from Africa in general, in terms of living as a larger village; and as human beings who are all interconnected with each other, each of us having an effect on our brothers and sisters.”

A total over nearly 30 billion people have watched this World Cup. Did they feel ubuntu across the airwaves? What happened to all those predictions about crime and bloodbaths? Was that ubuntu at work?

Ultimately, though I love Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben and long for Robin van Persie to score, I don’t care that much about Holland winning. Given Paul the Octopus and his muscle-bound support for Spain, perhaps this whole World Cup was never really about who triumphs on the football field.

It matters not. There has been only one winner. Africa. Ubuntu.

This isn't just a World Cup, it's a war: England must beat Germany, the US grab the glory and Japan are lurking... as France and Italy surrender

Never on the field of human conflict has so much football been played by so few for so many. Isn’t that what England’s veteran central defender Winston Churchill said 70 years ago? It’s been a curious global conflagration this.

Without wishing to irk the historians, France surrendered early and a new regime will take over the wreckage. Italy changed ends a few times and then threw up their hands too. Brave England, weary and dispirited, bravely trudged on. And then the high-spirited Americans appeared at the last minute to grab the glory.

I hope there’s no confusion. It’s the absorbing, unpredictable World Cup we’re talking about. Right here in South Africa where the disenfranchised majority desperately volunteer to back England, the Limeys are under siege and the Afrikaners may be quietly backing the Germans.

Now we await the big England showdown against the old foe, a long way from Tipperary. And the Japanese are lurking dangerously. The Swiss are in neutral for the time being, the Spanish are recovering from their earlier conflict and the South Americans appear largely unaffected by it all.

Poor old Africa appears to have been utterly let down by years of colonial dominance. European superpowers have drained their resources. Ghana are the first nation to claim freedom – and the last. But I’m going too far. Don’t mention the war, as the striking John Cleese once said.

Lest we forget, France really did surrender here. They laid down their arms and left with one solitary point from a boring display against the Uruguayans in Cape Town. A massive government inquiry is ongoing, Laurent Blanc now takes over the reins while Raymond Domenech falls on his sword, assisted by the hands-some major figure, Thierry Henry.

Four years ago Les Bleus reached the final. Twelve years ago they ruled the world. But in South Africa the French Resistance was about as laughable as the British comedy ‘Allo ‘Allo.

The Italians fared little better. They conquered the globe four years ago and forgot to conscript youngsters to replace those war-weary veterans. Generally, Marcello Lippi may have to resign his commission. When the big guns of Slovakia were turned on them, the Azzuri submitted 3-2 despite a few late shots. Like France, they finished bottom of their group and retreat in disgrace.

England, after a terrible start – that 0-0 draw against Algeria might have been our Dunkirk, we were all at sea – showed the Blitz spirit to see off mighty Slovenia 1-0 with the shout of “who goes there friend or Defoe?”

And just when it looked like those brave troops had Group C at their mercy, along comes Landon Donovan with that late goal against Algeria in Pretoria to put the United States on top. Yankee dandies doodled but they triumphed in the end with an ex-President urging them on.

Which of course leaves Her Majesty’s finest to take on the Germans. Alone. In Bloemfontein. On Sunday. Now I remember the capital of the Free State being a bit of a no-man’s land on the Sabbath. No drinking, no sport, just church. Perhaps things have changed. I doubt it. If there’s a corner of a foreign field that isn’t forever England, it’s Bloem.

The USA have the easy option, what with all their resources and plentiful rations of good fortune. They play sole African survivors Ghana in Phokeng, just down the road from England’s Royal Bafokeng Sports Campus base. The FA’s World Cup Final Solution – formulated long before the World Cup draw on December 4 - has gone awry.

And all the while the South Americans are progressing on several fronts. Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile sit proudly atop their groups and look capable of changing the course of global events. They haven’t endured a long, hard winter like the Europeans. They’re fresh, few casualties... and they’re taking no prisoners. All five of the CONMEBOL qualifiers.

Mexico have sneaked in too, but they’re not really in the same category. Portugal should join them, they’re the neutral choice. But only if they drive the Brazilians nuts in Durban.

And the sly Dutch appear to be lurking with intent. Three games, nine points after last night’s meaningless 2-1 victory over doomed Cameroon in Cape Town. Arsenal’s Robin van Persie dropped the bombshell just before half-time after an explosive interchange with Liverpool’s Dirk Kuyt.

Then Rafael van der Vaart put his hands up – to block Geremi's free-kick. Samuel Eto'o stuck away the penalty to equalise.

Then we had the standing ovation for the arrival of Bayern Munich’s Aarjen Robben, back after a hamstring injury. Almost immediately he hit a post, and Milan’s Klaas-Jan Huntelaar followed up to score the winner. Orange juice all round. But nobody’s really talking about the lowlanders. We are otherwise occupied.

With Japan for instance. They’re supposed to be a distant Asian power. Like South Korea. They play a different game; quick, neat but ineffective. Yet here they are, on the brink of threatening the traditional European powers. We may have under-estimated the Orientals (which is not to suggest an allegiance with Leyton Orient, no way). The Americans may be left to deal with this particular threat.

Their 3-1 triumph at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace last night would please any Emperor. Keisuke Honda produced the first genuine free-kick strike with the ballooning Jabulani ball to put Denmark on the back foot from 30 yards after 27 minutes. Yasuhito Endo did much the same 13 minutes later and by half-time it was 2-0.

Denmark hit the bar in the second half as they finally realised they were on their way out, but by then they were bacon. Well done. An 83^rd minute penalty – scored on the rebound by former Newcastle veteran Jon Dahl Tomasson, his first goal in 13 games – gave the Danes hope but it was a phoney war; up popped Shinji Okazaki to produce coup de grace in the dying moments.

Australia? New Zealand? They fought so hard, sacrificed so much... but went home without recognition. Like a couple of the unpredictable Balkan states, Greece, Serbia and Slovenia. Cannon fodder. Slovakia alone have defied the odds, but they should be kept in Czech.

It’s all fitting in to an historical pattern this World Cup. And the good news? History suggests England will rise up after those torrid opening skirmishes to conquer those efficient Germans.

Could we call that VE day? Oh, what a lovely war!

Neal Collins is not a war historian. He is a sports journalist touring South Africa to promote his first novel, A GAME APART, currently No 67 on Amazon’s African best-sellers list, just ahead of “Truth and Lies: Stories from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa”. For more information, see www.nealcollins.co.uk. Or ask your local book shop to order one.

To see Neal talk at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown on July 4, go tohttp://www.computicket.com/web/event/neal_collins_a_game_apart/148367625.