Eduardo suffers 'horror injury'

Sky Sports

Arsenal striker Eduardo da Silva suffered a horrific broken leg in the opening minutes of the Premier League clash with Birmingham.

The Croatia international was challenged by Birmingham's Martin Taylor in the third minute of the game at St Andrews with the centre-back being shown an immediate red card by referee Mike Dean.

Eduardo's clearly distressed team-mates immediately signalled to the sidelines that urgent attention was required and the game was held up for seven minutes as he received treatment on the field.

The injury was deemed to be so serious that replays of the incident were not shown on television.

Photographs of the challenge and the immediate aftermath suggest the injury is similar to the break suffered by Manchester United forward Alan Smith during their FA Cup defeat at Liverpool in 2006.

Eduardo is now facing a lengthy spell on the sidelines and is certain to miss the remainder of this campaign and Croatia's Euro 2008 challenge in the summer.

After being stretchered off the field, he was immediately taken to hospital for further treatment.

The Brazil-born striker moved to Emirates Stadium from Dinamo Zagreb last summer and had scored 12 goals in his first 30 appearances for Arsene Wenger's side.

Absolute shame.  Such a good young talent.  He'll never be the same again.

Hope he pulls through.  Never nice to see a player like that.

horrific injury hope he comes back from this he is a terrific player would hate to see his career ended from this.

Sky Sports won't even show the tackle because apparently it's that bad.

Me mate sent me that photo on MSN.  Poor F***ing tackle.

christ, that looks bad, brings back memories of cisse and busst, remember him.

hope he is able to come back from that.  dont like seeing that happening to anyone.

get well soon son

Jesus that is F***ing bad. I hope the poor lad recovers. All the best.

Thats a bad one,
All the best eduardo

That's a horrible picture.

that is horrible...brrrrr..horri ble picture.

Never nice to hear of such injuries.

I wish him a full and speedy recovery.

Terrible. I hope the lads career is not in doubt.

Horrible photo.


Get well soon Eduardo, hope you make a full recovery.

You could see from the Arsenal players reactions what a horrific injury it was. The slo-motion reply on MOTD was horrible.

You could see from the Arsenal players reactions what a horrific injury it was. The slo-motion reply on MOTD was horrible.

Fabregas couldn't believe it.

I've had a horrific injury myself and it's not a nice situation to be in.  8 days in hospital and required an 7 hour operation.

What happened to me was I was playing Football on the duey grass when it was going dark, ran past a few people with the ball & shot the ball, slid over, someone came in on my elbow and it just snapped!  I've got one big arse scar but it makes me think twice about wearing trainers on the slippy grass.

Back on topic...

I hope he pulls through.  And I certainly hope he doesn't lose his class.

Eduardo is a player I've always admired even before he joined the gunners. That tackle is disgusting and totally uncalled for! Tackles resluting like that should be a whole season ban.. we don't want to see other players careers ended by things like this.. they only live once and they need full support! Your only a footballer once, hopefully Eduardo will recover stronger than ever but seeing as the break was in his lower leg near his ankle.. I fear that he won't be the same again!

All the best!

Hope Eduardo gets through this and Taylor is banned for a while until he can learn how to respect players a bit more.

Horrible injury, you don't want to see that happen to anyone. He's a very classy player too. And that player Kelly for Birmingham said it should never have been a sending off, he completly missed the ball and has now put a great players career in doubt. He deserves at least a 7 game ban, it was a disgraceful challenge.

I agree the tackle was awful. One of the pundits yesterday said that Eduardo was simply too fast for Taylor. O.K the tackle was high, reckless and his studs were showing but i don't think he went in thinking i am going to break his leg. Eduardo nicked the ball away and he followed through. You could see the look on Taylor's face and he was gutted bout it. I'm glad Wenger retracted his statement. Yes Taylor should be banned but not lifetime.

Gutted about Eduardo though. He has shown moments of real quality this season and next seaon would have been immense. You would never wish it on any player. Get well soon. :'(

MOTD showed last night, (taped and watch this morning) Now I've seen some gruesome sights over my time working in hospitals, and that was anatomically wrong and interesting to see how sinew can keep a foot still attached to a leg when both bones , tib & fib, are broken. Yes it turned my stomach and I only watched it once. I wish him the best as I feel he is going to need it.

The pictures look identical to David Busst's when he broke his leg. Two worst football injuries ever.

I have hope with him being quite young that that will be an advantage for him to have a career left. Your bones heal and get stronger the younger you are don't they RedPuppy?
Adam17 is right when he says he's shown moments of real quality and I thought Wenger had popped up with another gem. Such a sad incident and I hope the lad recovers well and can play football again.

FFS this brings tears to my eyes even still. I felt physically sick when I saw this being Croatian and loving the Croatian National Team I am absoultely gutted. This young lad has had to work so hard to get where he was, born and raised on the streets of Sao Paolo came to Croatia when he was 15 and slept on the training ground for two weeks before a local family took him in. Became a fantastic player and now to have all that undone by and ruined by some pathetic third grade defender is just not consolable.

An absoulute horrific tackle the ball was nowhere near Taylor when he made contact with Eduardo's leg and i guess it typifies English Football- no skill, no brains just brawns with the exception of a minority of teams and players. The poor lad will never be the same and will only be a shadow of his former self. I cant describe what a shock to Croatia this is the whole country is mortified and this will have a detrimental effect on our Euro aspirations. Taylor deserves to be banned for as long as Eduardo is out, that will only be of small justification.

Eduardo has come out in the Croatian Press and says he does not blame Taylor, but in the minds if many the injury was tragic,disgusting and shocking.

Good luck Dudu I hope you recovery is rapid and we all love you so much.

Doesn't matter if Eduardo was too quick for Taylor.. these types of tackles are illegal in the game and Taylor knows jolly well that these kind of tackles will result in a straight red. You NEVER show your studs in a tackle.. he went in with a stiff stab and in my opinion these tackles are only made when the player is feeling the heat!

Thing is he put his whole body weight behind that tackle.. again players only really put their whole body weight into tackles when they are sliding tackles as these are cleaner with the contact to the player.

What Taylor did was disgusting, he knew what he was doing before the tackle and he should be banned for a long long time. This could seriously off-put foreign stars similar to Fernando Torres in joining the Premierleague. I'm F***ing angry enough with this tackle as I hate seeing things like this... if it was done to Fernando Torres I actually think I'd hunt him down!

I still think cisse's first break is the worst injury I've ever seen on a football pitch due to where it was in his leg and how it happened.

The physical pain of having to have your bones re-aligned whilst still on the pitch is more unbearable to think of than any other injury I've heard of in football to this day.

Eduardo has said he is already thinking about his return and I hope he is back as soon as possible he is a great player to watch and doesnt deserve anything like that, although it was a terrible tackle there was no intent and I hope taylors name isnt tainted due to this, he has even gone to visit eduardo and I think he did not mean atall for anything like it to happen. life time ban is OTT, it seems logical to some due to fears wduardos career could be over but it has happened alot in football, that doesnt make it acceptable but even stevie has made one of these challenges before, fortunately it didnt result in the player breaking a bone but still that doesnt make it any more acceptable.

Things like the tackle that knocked out the man city player, elbow first into his neck, do deserve life time bans though, clearly there was intent the ball was going off and he ran a long way to do that it is totally unnaceptable in football.