Eduardo and Taylorgate - My Thoughts on 'That Tackle'

Saturday’s midday fixture should have been a tale of a dramatic late equaliser from Birmingham's James McFadden, securing the Blues a precious point and throwing Arsenal's title hopes back into the air.

Unfortunately, the 2-2 draw was marred by the terrible injury sustained by Arsenals new Brazilian born Croatian striker Eduardo da Silva. The tackle by Birmingham central defender Martin Taylor has drawn comment from all corners and I thought I would give my two cents.

First of all, I would like to wish Eduardo all the best and I hope his recovery goes well. The pictures of his leg break were extremely disturbing, so much so that only Match of the Day showed them during their analysis of the game. In a rather cathartic way I had wanted to see it as everyone had been banging on about it all day, but now I have I wish to erase it from my memory.

Hopefully Eduardo will grace a football pitch again, especially having just landed his dream move to the Premier League leaders. He had just begun to find his feet in the Premiership and form a deadly partnership with Emmanuel Adebayor. He will now miss the rest of the season, as well as Croatia’s Euro 2008 campaign, but hopefully that will be all he misses out on.

The reaction to this injury has been huge but it is hard to justify what Arsene Wenger said about Martin Taylor. Wenger initially called for Taylor to be banned from playing football for life. He later retracted that statement saying: "On reflection, I feel that my comments about Martin Taylor were excessive. I said what I did immediately after the game in the heat of the moment."

However, I do agree with one comment he made when he said that the incident followed an increasingly used tactic and mentality by his opponents that “to beat Arsenal you have to kick Arsenal.” I do think that this is the perception of many teams in the Premiership, and Arsenal do get roughed up from time to time.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want football to become a non-contact sport. I just feel that Arsenal have become such as masterful side at times that managers and players may feel the only way to stop them is to boot them up in the air. This mentality could cause players to become excessively aggressive against the Gunners and maybe that played a part in this unfortunate incident.

The other reaction which caught my eye was that of Birmingham’s right back Stephen Kelly. The Republic of Ireland international was quick to defend his team-mate saying: “It was harsh Tiny (Taylor) being sent off. Tiny has gone in and it wasn't a malicious tackle and the reason the ref has sent him off is because he has seen Eduardo has broken his leg.

“I don't think you can send a player off for that. That's football. It can happen. It is an accident. Tiny didn't go in two-footed. He didn't lunge. He didn't dive in. Everyone knows what Tiny is like. He is such a nice bloke. He has not got a malicious bone in his body so it was very harsh for the ref to see the broken leg and then send him off because of that.”

This did interest me as I think Kelly has missed the point somewhat. I accept that the tackle was neither two-footed nor a lunge, and possibly the horrific injury prompted referee Mike Deane to pull out his red card. I am also confident that Martin Taylor did not go into that tackle with the intent to cause Eduardo any injury; I just think the striker has been terribly unlucky to suffer such a break.

However, Taylor’s challenge was for me a definite red card. His studs were raised as he went into the tackle and that should constitute a red card, regardless of what happened to the player on the other end of it. These sorts of tackles have become a menace to the modern game just the way diving did a few years back. It needs, if you excuse the pun, stamping out.

What I hope is that Taylor is given a ban on a par with his crime. However, he should not be made an example of just because Eduardo suffered a career threatening leg break. What should happen is what should always happen after one of these raised studs challenges; the player should get a three match ban. Consistent implementation of this would help cut out the two-footed lunge and avoid such career ending tackles.

Taylor has visited Eduardo in hospital and spoke to him, offering his sincere apologise. Birmingham manager Alex McLeish spoke of Taylor’s distress after the match and I think it is clear that he wasn’t out to end Eduardo’s career, unlike Roy Keane’s admission in his autobiography about his challenge on Alf Inge Haaland.

The best we can hope for from this terrible event is that Eduardo can get back playing football and try and add to his 12 goals in 30 appearances for the Gunners, and that players start to realise the consequences of the increasingly nasty, high and dangerous tackles that have put a cloud over what has been an interesting and exciting season thus far.