Sadness – Eduardo’s injury very early on. It looked fairly innocuous on the telly in real time, but now I’ve seen the pics online and it’s horrible.

Birmingham 2 – 2 Arsenal

Rollercoaster rides are meant to have a happy ending

I can’t bring myself to write an in-depth, blow-by-blow match review. My head is still spinning. So instead I’ve tried to express some feelings from the game, in chronological order:

1) Sadness – Eduardo’s injury very early on. It looked fairly innocuous on the telly in real time, but now I’ve seen the pics online and it’s horrible.

2) Numbness – I felt numb all through the first half, and I’m sure the players did too. The fact that we went a goal behind didn’t help either…

3) Typical – Birmingham’s only effort on target in the first period, and they scored from it. And it was from a needless set-piece to concede. Did the ref even blow his whistle so the free-kick could be taken? ‘Cos I’m pretty sure Manuel was still organising his wall.

4) Redemption – that must’ve been one hell of a teamtalk at half-time, because the boys came out on fire. None more so than Theo, who showed poacher’s instinct for his first and class for his second. We need him to step up to the plate now more than ever.

5) Pride – as we went 2-1 up and began to knock the ball around comfortably, I was immensely proud of the players. It could have been even more comfortable had Cesc’s shot not hit the post. To roar back after seeing their mate get injured and after going a goal down said a lot about them as men.

6) Greed – why oh why didn’t Ade square the ball to Bendtner?! The race for the Golden Boot has gone to his head. Had he laid it to Nick it would’ve likely been 3-1, job done. But instead we’d have to weather a storm in the final minutes of the game.

7) Complacency – I feel for Gael, who has been a standout performer this season. But that’s now two mistakes in the last two away games that have resulted in goals. I’ve only seen one replay but it did look like he nicked the ball before the man, but he should not have got himself into that situation in the first place. I’m guessing he didn’t see the Birmingham player hugging the right touchline. Talk about a costly blind spot.

8) Stupidity – now I know it was a silly mistake to make by Gael, but did Willy have to go off in a huff like that???? After the final whistle, okay it’s understandable. But the game was still going on, and had the penalty been saved or rebounded off the woodwork then it would’ve been all hands to the pump. And our skipper would have been at the other end of the pitch with egg on his face. A bad example to set for the kids.

9) Dejected – at the dropped points.

10) Disconsolate – at Eduardo’s injury.

11) Pray – that the Barcodes can do us a favour, but more importantly pray for the Crozilian. Get well soon.

UPDATE: useless Newcastle. Not only do they lose, but they get hammered. They alone have conceded ELEVEN goals to the Mancs this season. And what happened when we went to St. James’ Park? They put in their best performance of the season.

Since full-time I’ve tried to immerse myself in the Six Nations rugby and get away from thinking about football at all. But it hasn’t worked, I can’t get my mind off Eddie’s injury. In Amsterdam pre-season there was a chant for him to the tune of the Proclaimers’ 500 miles song. It went like this:

I would walk 500 miles,
And I would walk 500 more,
To be the man who walks a thousand miles,
To see Eduardo score.

Well right now I’d walk a million miles just to see him play again. This whole day hurts a lot more than the tonkings at the Lane and last week at Old Trafford. I just hope that the players can get their heads together after a day like this and avoid meltdown. I heard at the game that our fans were chanting “We’re gonna win for Eduardo”. It may not have worked on the day itself, but let’s hope the players can carry that mantra through to the end of the season.