Firstly I’d just like to say hello to the readership here at World Of Arsenal. I’ve been a regular reader for some time and, as Dev mentioned yesterday, an active commenter. One of the reasons I keep reading the WOA is the healthy debate in the comments and the quality of the writing – hopefully I won’t let you down!
EDIT: Ooops, I’ve duplicated some of Dev’s sentiments, blame it on a heavy wedding weekend!
As you’ve probably guessed from my title, I’m still feeling pretty terrible about Eduardo’s departure. It’s probably for the best for both sides as Eduardo is going to get first team football and Arsenal have made some room for Chamakh in the squad. On that note, I realise last season we were stuck for large periods with no recognised striker as RVP was out, Bendtner was out and Vela was looking for his passport – some of you might be questioning the logic of replacing a striker rather than adding one – but even when Eduardo was fit he couldn’t buy his place on the pitch, sometimes even the squad. Why would we resort to playing Arshavin up front on his own, in a position he clearly didn’t want to be playing, when we had the Crozillian on the bench? Because Arsene had lost faith, and on the few occasions he got onto the pitch it seemed that Eduardo had lost faith in himself to. So I genuinely believe this is the best move for all concerned, especially with Jay Emmanuel Thomas shining and Simpson looking like he could be Arsene’s ‘Fox In The Box’ (except not shit like Blackpool bound Fanny Jeffers!).
But I digress – it should have never got to this. It’s not how it was meant to end and largely we have the lumbering man-golem Martin ‘Two-Bits’ Taylor to thank for that.
Eduardo arrived in the summer of 2007 and in his first season, a season where he was expected to take time to settle, made 31 appearances (22 starts) and created 20 goals (12 scored and 8 assists). That is an incredible return for a new addition to a top level team when put into perspective – he played for just 50% of the season, a season curtailed in the most extreme and horrific manner by the aforementioned Birmingham leg snapper. Had Eduardo not been injured on the 23rd February 2008, I have absolute certainty that I would not be writing this post.
Not everyone believes that – certainly it’s been two and a half years since the injury so it’s perhaps easy to forget the clinical nature of Eduardos finishing when he first arrived. The Daily Mail clearly have, with this terrible piece of shit ‘journalism’. Seriously, considering the source of such an ignorant pile of piss, they probably don’t like him because he can’t trace his ancestry back to the druids.
But for every piece of garbage peddled by the media, there is at least one rational mind talking common sense. Pete Gill on F365 sums up everything that is wrong with the Daily Mail article here:
Sympathy is not obligatory or even essential, but there is something deeply unpleasant in such phraseology as ‘he is leaving the Emirates like many before him: with his name almost as badly shattered as the bones in the ankle he infamously broke at Birmingham.’ If the analogy wasn’t so abhorrent, a retort to the intimation that Eduardo broke his legs without outside interference would be worth a paragraph of its own.
If you need any further proof that Eduardo’s career has been utterly derailed by his injury, since his return he has managed to convert just 6.3% of his shots. Before his injury he was converting 23.5% of his shots. Cut those numbers anyway you like, that is a devastating loss of potency.
I don’t want to dwell on the challenge, the subsequent knighting of Taylor as a defender of the British realm by the press and the vilification of Eduardo for a) being broken in two and b) diving at Celtic but clearly this has all helped shape a football size hole in DuDu’s psyche.
The trouble with an injury like this is not just the extended lay off which has visibly slowed Eduardo down but the consistent proneness to injury on the players return. Diaby has consistently had tweaks and strains and Nasri has taken an entire season to get back to full match fitness – both having previously suffered fractures. RVP seems like he might be over the worst of it, but he’s another player who seems to be constantly injured.
Outside of Arsenal, Michael Owen was never the same after serious injury and we’ve seen Torres struggle with every single muscle in his body for Liverpool and Spain this season.
And that’s really what I wanted to address. At the relatively late stage in his career (25 years old) when he was injured, DuDu was never going to be the same player on his return. Whether Taylor meant it or not, he kicked a bright star out of football that day.
Tough tackling has been debated over and over again and I’d prefer to skirt that issue right now – the long and short of it is this:
- Martin Taylor broke Eduardo Da Silva’s leg.
- Eduardo has left English football because he is no longer good enough to play top flight football on a weekly basis.
Whether or not you support/revile the tough tackling approach (or take both viewpoints depending on whether players are Dutchmen assaulting Spanish players or Birmingham/Stoke players breaking Arsenal players, right Alan Hansen?) the sad fact is that Eduardo has been kicked out of our game, and I promise you that is a very sad loss for English football.
