Get Well Eduardo

It was meant to be another easy workout to maintain the 5 points gap. It was meant to be a match to erase the painful exit at last weekend’s cup competition. It was a match meant to regain the scoring touch that went missing during the Champion’s League. But this is a match where even the glory of a Premiership title winning run has to be put at the backburners.

Merely 3 minutes into the opening half when heartbreak happened. No sooner had the fans settled down when Eduardo’s leg snapped and he suffered a double compound fracture in his fibula and foot. First glance at the challenge made by Martin Taylor looked fairly innocuous and one would have half expected the Croat to be standing within the next minute or at least after some treatment at the sidelines. But that was not to be.

The early setback and the horror of the outcome shocked all Arsenal players. It must be said that some were more emotional than others. I guess it’s fair to say that most are more worried bout the health of Eduardo than the outcome of the match. No matter how bad the team played, you could easily understand what was going through their minds. Add in a McFadden goal from a freekick which profited from Almunia’s positioning or rather the lack of it.

Arsene Wenger must have felt hard done by during the interval. It is hard enough trailing in the actual football but he had to galvanize his side to come out firing in the second half when the players are more concerned and upset with the Eduardo incident.

It took a lot of guts to continue playing the way they did. To their credit, they did come out firing on all cylinders and laid siege into Birmingham’s goal. You could sense that they want to dedicate this win to the stricken striker. In a 10 minutes salvo, Arsenal have taken the lead with two well taken goals from the improving Theo Walcott. I pity this boy. It took him a while to get his first Premiership goal and in a match like this, it will always be overshadowed by what happened to his teammate.

After the goals, there wasn’t much attacking to be done by Arsenal. They simply slumped back to the mood they were in the first half. Not intending to do much and just wanted the final whistle to come. If they have kept going at Birmingham, the opposition wouldn’t be able to keep it with them. Somehow you knew that if the third goal did not come, the Blues would hit us back. And that they did. No matter how dodgy the penalty decision in the final minute of injury time was, the Arsenal boys only had themselves to be blame for their inadequacies to finish the job.

The antics of the captain, William Gallas when the penalty was awarded was shameful. That was not the behaviour of an Arsenal captain. Throwing a tantrum when there is still a penalty to defend was unacceptable. On the basis of this action alone, there should a new captain to take up the mantle as the leader of the club. In my years, I’ve never once seen Tony Adams acted as such throughout his distinguished career as Arsenal captain.

As disappointing as the result was, it was nothing compared with the loss of an individual to such a horrific injury. My heart and thoughts are with you, Eduardo. So is the rest of the world. Get well soon.