I genuinely still feel shocked for the extent of the injury suffered by Eduardo and his family, for whom it is an exceptionally tough time, seeing a loved one badly hurt and unable to do anything about it. Factor in the new country and new home scenarios and you can only touch on the surface of how they must be feeling. I will not be commenting on ‘return’ times other than any bulletins from the club in case you are wondering over the coming months about the silence on the player. It does not mean that I do not care, simply that on such issues speculation seems to me at least, to be distasteful and disrespectful.

Eduardo has spoken about the incident which you can read about here and on the official site.

The media coverage has been sickening in its hypocrisy. Sky which took so much self-righteous pleasure in the holier-than-thou attitude it took over not showing the replay reverted to type  by showing the tackle four times every hour yesterday which by my reckoning means it was aired ninety six times. And their lead on the story was based on Arsene retracting comments.

As for the Birmingham players, some of them really do need to look at themselves and I wonder how long it will be before they have the good grace to retract their words? Probably a very long time, in particular Seb Larsson,

It’s idiotic and childish for Wenger to say things like that. Of course it was horrible to see. But everybody who knows Martin would also know he would never hurt anybody on purpose and for Wenger to say things like that just prove he is a sore loser. Then again, his whole team were the same. Arsenal were in a bad mood all game. They were very unsportsmanlike

Larsson’s comments are genuinely offensive to the extent that one wonders if he actually has a brain. In a bad mood all game? I wonder why? Perhaps he could remind us exactly which was the offence? Arsene’s words or Martin Taylor’s ’sportsmanlike’ actions?

With Eduardo missing for the rest of the season, the striking department is light in numbers, only Bendtner being fit to play alongside Adebayor with Walcott in the short term at least, being needed on the right of the midfield. There are two ways that Arsene can deal with this. Firstly, the team can revert to a 4-5-1 formation, something I believe Arsene would have done for the second leg in Milan anyway but there are Premier League matches to be played as well. Rotating Bendtner and Adebayor is fine but with all due respect to the Dane, it is questionable whether or not the responsibility of leading the line is too much for him during this stage of the season.

The other option open to Arsene is that he takes a risk on Robin van Persie, bringing him back sooner than he might well otherwise have done. There is a considerable amount of pressure to do this in current situation which although Arsene has been here before, will affect his judgement as this is only human nature. Reportedly, RvP will be back in training this week although before the Birmingham game, Arsene commented that he was unlikely to be ready for the Milan game. The situation has echoes of last season when Henry was rushed back for the PSV game at The Emirates and we know how that ended.

Even reverting to 4-5-1 is not without risks for Premier League games at the moment. Diaby and Rosicky are injured with Eboue suspended. It leaves the midfield options as Gilberto or Denilson. Of the two, the latter is more attack minded but also returning from a hamstring injury so he cannot be pushed too hard at the moment. A tough decision for Arsene this week although as it is a home game on Saturday, I would expect Adebayor and Bendtner to line-up together against Villa.

Finally, a couple of housekeeping items. Firstly, anyone wishing to receive their daily dose of my thoughts and ramblings by email can do so by clicking here or under the ‘ACLF by email’ heading on the right hand side. Secondly, Premier League View has been relaunched today following a quiet spell. In fact it was so quiet over there that the church mice made more noise which is completely my fault through lack of time to write anything. The objective of that site is to separate the wider aspects of the world game from here, keeping this one as specifically Arsenal related. Posts will be initially every other day, so feel free to join in. Indeed, on that one, if anyone has any thoughts that they wish to pen contact me at the usual address and you may have the floor so to speak.

‘til Tomorrow.

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