Arsenal are willing to play ugly to retain their push for a Champions League position and maintain their momentum. Gunners skipper Robin van Persie is confident their recent run of impressive result will secure them a third-place finish at the expense of London rivals Chelsea and Tottenham. “In the battle for third place the momentum is ours now, we are winning games and the other teams are dropping points,” Van Persie the official Arsenal website. The Gunners have won their last five matches while rivals Spurs have picked up just one point from a possible 12. Chelsea had won four in a row, but defeat at Manchester City leaves them six points behind the Gunners with nine games left. “They have tough fixtures coming up too because Chelsea meet Spurs this Saturday. From our point of view, for those two to play each other at this moment is fantastic because we know one of them - or even both of them - will definitely drop points. “So we have to win against Villa to take advantage of that. If we have to win ugly, then let’s do that. It’s part of our job too. We have shown great character in the last few weeks, so why not do it every week now? “You can see that the mentality has changed lately,” he added. The Dutch international who has been in sublime touch this term scoring 26 goals in the Premier League, believes they shown character to come back from the dead this season. “Twice we have had to come back from very hard periods this season - at the start of the season after losing at Old Trafford, then recently when we lost to AC Milan and Sunderland. “After those two games everyone was thinking this is going from bad to worse, because our next fixtures were Tottenham, Liverpool, Milan, Newcastle and Everton - but we won them all.”