Let's win the league for Eduardo, even if we couldn't win today.

First and foremost, my thoughts, and those of all the Arsenal supporting community are with Eduardo. In all my years of watching football, it's not only the worst injury I've seen an Arsenal player sustain, but one of the worst injuries I've seen any player suffer. This isn’t just a case of hoping that he’ll be back soon, but whether he’ll be back at all. I sincerely hope he is because he’s a great player and person, and doesn’t deserve to have his career ended by some shit-kicker like Martin Taylor. And as you can see above, his tackle was awful and intentional.

For those of you who want to see exactly how bad it is, there is a link here. I warn you, these photos are not for the faint hearted, but unless you see them (and the one above) it may not be possible to fully appreciate quite what a horrific injury this is, and also the clear intent to hurt Eduardo that Martin Taylor had:

Here

Some of you might think Arsene is overreacting in calling for a lifetime ban, but it's easy to see why Arsene is so upset. We’ve been subjected to a plurality of awful challenges this season, as too many teams still think that the way to deal with us is by kicking us. It was, as Arsene points out, only a matter of time before someone was hurt in this way. For McCleish to come out and say ‘he’s not usually this type of player’ is irrelevant; he was that type of player today and he might have ended a fellow professional’s career.

The rest of the game was largely overshadowed by the challenge, and our players barely kept it together for the rest of the first half. It was almost inevitable that Birmingham would score, and they did. Question marks could be asked over Almunia’s goalkeeping, and he was poor overall today.

But the safety of the dressing room obviously did the players the world of good, and they positively exploded in the opening minutes of the second half. Two great goals for Theo, who will have to step up for the rest of the season given the injuries to our forward line.

We should have comfortably finished the game off, and Adebayor and Hleb were particularly guilty of wasting chances. Did Ade see Bendtner in the two on one situation? Perhaps a little bit too greedy.

The price of wasting our mountain of chances was allowing Birmingham to always be within one kick of squaring the match. And, of course, they did. Clichy, who’s an excellent season, made an awful error, again trying to be over clever when a quick hoof of the ball would have sufficed.

Birmingham got a point they didn’t deserve, and Gallas very publicly sulked. While it’s nice to see that level of passion, it shouldn’t have happened in public. Not actions that were very becoming of a captain.

Overall then, a horrible game. Given the undoubted shock that many of the team were suffering, it’s good to get any points from the match, but to dominate the game in that way and not pick up all the points is a bit sickening.

But not as sickening as the challenge on Edu. So, if we needed any further incentive, let’s win the league for Eduardo. I want to see him on the podium in May as a symbol that you can’t kill real football, no matter how hard you kick your opponent.