A Brummy journalist's reaction to Wenger's comments

Arsene Wenger's comments in the wake of the injury to Eduardo have been described as a 'graceless diatribe' by Pat Murphy of the Birmingham Post.

He argues that Taylor will now have to think before flying into challenges, 'putting his body on the line'. Erm....good!

There have been too many reckless challenges flying in for a long time now, I think it needs to be stamped out. Maybe if a higher profile player such as Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo had their ankles broken people would sit up and take notice.

He goes on to write that a 'more cynical player would have stood his ground, berating the referee and the injured opponent, protesting his innocence'. To be honest, I don't think any player alive would have that kind of reaction to a broken ankle, a career threatening injury....except one perhaps, I'm looking at you Roy Keane.

He also ignores the fact that Wenger, thankfully, retracted his statements made after the game. He's admitted that they were 'made in the heat of the moment' without proper thought. But Murphy says Wenger's comments 'served to install two victims' from the incident. Indeed Pat, Eduardo has potentially had his career ruined, and Taylor has rightly had his reputation diminished.

Terrible, terrible article...biased sports journalism of the worst kind.

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Get well soon Eduardo...

The injury to Eduardo Da Silva in the opening minutes of yesterday's game between Birmingham and Arsenal was sickening and as an Arsenal fan I found it very hard to watch.

We've lost an important player at the most crucial stage of the season. But more importantly, the career of a promising young player has potentially been ended by the reckless actions of Birmingham defender Martin Taylor.

Taylor, who according to Alex McLeish is “not a dirty player”, broke Eduardo's leg in this challenge:

(Apologies for the slideshow, most videos of the incident get taken down from Youtube very quickly)

Taylor will serve out his 3 match ban for a straight red card, and will be back playing again very soon.

Given that Jeremie Aliadiere was given a red card, and will receive the same punishment, for 'lightly slapping' Javier Mascherano in Middlesbrough's game with Liverpool shows that this is not justice, and I hope Taylor is given extra punishment.

However, I am glad Arsene Wenger retracted his statement that Taylor should “never play football again”. I felt this was slightly over the top, but understandable as it was said in the heat of the moment.

As I write this it's been reported that Eduardo has had surgery on his broken leg and is likely to be out for at least 9 months.

Get well soon Eduardo!

Let's go for a walk...

Ever wondered what you might see on your way from Avenham Park to UCLan's Foster Building in Preston?

Well, now you know....should save you a 10 minute walk...

Images taken from Flickr.com.