Roy Collins talks to the colourful Arsenal midfielder who is inprolific form ahead of today's game against Chelsea

From a man who wears clothes that Johnny Rotten might reject as outlandish and has the brightest coloured hair this side of Marge Simpson, it is a shock when Freddie Ljungberg announces his natural modesty.

He does not like talking about himself, he says, but agrees to because the whole football world has been talking about him after his goals in recent weeks, which have put Arsenal on the brink of the double. Film crews from his native Sweden have descended on the club to monitor his thoughts on today's FA Cup final, the World Cup, his "fashion sense" and musical tastes.

Ljungberg, just turned 25 and wearing what looks like an upturned flowerpot on his head - he has not had time, he says, to retouch the red flashes in his hair - does seem embarrassed by the attention. He says: "Scoring some goals has been a bonus for me because my first aim this season was to play well, as that is important for a midfield player.

"I didn't expect to score so many but we did talk as a team about all of us making more of a contribution, especially when Thierry Henry was suspended. So it feels pretty good for me at the moment, though I haven't had time to think about the World Cup because Arsenal have had so many big games and we still have three more to go."

Ljungberg, who launched his Arsenal career in September 1998 by scoring against Manchester United 40 seconds after coming off the bench, has run up a total of 16 goals in 37 games this season, remarkable for a midfield player. And his six goals in the past seven games have virtually secured Arsenal's red and white ribbons on the Premiership trophy.

In nine defining days which ended at Bolton on Monday, Ljungberg scored both goals against Ipswich, scored and made one against West Ham and again came up with the nerve-stripping first with a magical effort at the Reebok. The latter, like the first against Ipswich, was the result of breathtaking runs on to passes by Dennis Bergkamp.

One could not think of two more contrasting characters than the sober, level-headed Bergkamp and the quasi-punk that is Ljungberg. But they are men whose footballing brains have seemingly identical frequencies.

Ljungberg says: "We don't actually plan anything, yet it works in training all the time as well. He thinks about something at the same time as me and when he plays the pass, I am there. It's a difficult thing to do in the Premiership because the football is so quick but Dennis has a special vision to see the pass."

Bergkamp admits: "It is like a sort of telepathy because at certain moments, both of us know exactly what the other is going to do and that is very hard to defend against. We both get the same feeling and, knowing how he likes to make those runs into the box, I am happy to stay back and be the provider."

It is not unusual for a striker to monopolise scoring, but Ljungberg is a deep-lying player who makes lightning strikes behind enemy lines, often from wide positions, with only the angle of his runs and his speed of thought acting as camouflage.

His manager Arsene Wenger says he bought Ljungberg because he saw the hunger of a winner in his eyes and the player himself admits that, for all his devil-may-care appearance, that hunger once threatened to destroy his career before it began. He says: "I'm a very bad loser and when I was a kid I had to work to control it because I showed my disappointment more than I should after a defeat. I wouldn't say I behaved that badly but my parents and coach had to tell me to stop it and, when I did, it helped me to concentrate on my game."

Wenger, who is normally prudent when dealing in the transfer market, concedes that he acted out of something akin to blind panic when he decided to pay Halmstad £3 million for Ljungberg days after watching him on TV as Sweden beat England in September, 1998.

Wenger says: "I rushed into the decision because I was scared someone else would take him, knowing that a lot of other English people were watching him. Even so, there was a lot of scepticism about him and in an ideal world, you might say, why buy him? But I thought it was a limited financial risk and now, you can see, he has the attitude of a top football player."

Ljungberg has proved such a gilt-edged investment that some journalists are claiming they were too hasty in voting for his team-mate Robert Pires as footballer of the year, while thoughts of what he might do against England in the World Cup are giving Sven-Goran Eriksson sleepless nights.

His recent run will make Ljungberg a short price to be the first goalscorer today - as he was against Liverpool in last year's final - particularly as he has also built a reputation for goals in the big games. He says: "I have heard people say that I only score in big games and the fans even sing about me only scoring against Manchester United. But I haven't a clue why I score in those games and sometimes not in others, though maybe my concentration is higher in the big games."

The important thing against Chelsea today, he says, is not only keeping the double dream alive but erasing the suffering from last year's defeat by Liverpool, which affected everyone at Highbury. He says: "You can accept it if you play against a better side and they play better football than you on the day. But many of us thought we should have killed the game off earlier and that hurt."

Four years of hurt since Arsenal last won a trophy has not, of course, stopped them dreaming. And even if Chelsea upset the odds and the double today, Ljungberg and his team-mates are longs odds-on to wrap up the Premiership in the next week.

But there is no point asking a man who hates losing which one he is putting his hat on. He desperately wants them both.