Recklessness? From the way Martin Taylor lunged at Eduardo with such viciousness and disregard for causing harm, and in the process cut through Eddie’s leg

By: Gooner ’79

On February 23rd 2008 on an everyday Saturday afternoon, we, and by we I mean, Arsenal, experienced an act of pure recklessness, disrespect and humiliation.

Recklessness? From the way Martin Taylor lunged at Eduardo with such viciousness and disregard for causing harm, and in the process cut through Eddie’s leg like a hot knife through butter. Absolutely sickening. The fact that we could’ve won and didn’t is NOT on my agenda. The emotion and pain felt by our whole squad today spoke volumes.

Disrespect? Because every Arsenal fan was expecting and received the full and blatant bias against us, yet again. No replay? Why not? They seem to have no problem showing Roy Keane’s attack on Alfe-Inge Haland. Nor do they have a problem with showing Gibril Cisse snapping his leg in half. Nor do they have a problem with showing Marc Vivian Foe DYING on a football pitch. Yet they think that showing Eduardo having his leg broken by an Englishman is ‘too disturbing’? Who gave Sky the right to censor something as important as this. Maybe it’s because it will make the general public see that for all the negative press directed at Arsenal, yet again, we’ve seen one of our players receive an early bath for their such a crucial stage in their careers (see Abou Diaby). Or maybe it’s because the FA wouldn’t want to lose out on their bid for the World Cup in 2018. Imagine if that foul was on Wayne Rooney? There would be a public execution on whichever player did the did, but ideally it would be an Arsenal player to make the public slaughter even more enjoyable for the parasites that feed off any small chink in our glorious history.

Humiliation? Because ever since this incident took place, we have to, yet again, hear all these ex-footballers try and defend the indefensible. “It was barely a yellow”, says David Platt, “He didn’t mean it” says Steve Bruce, “Ref had a bad game” says Alan Hansen. Well what about, “Martin Taylor has brutally cut short a young player’s career in his prime and only gets a 3 match ban” says Gooner 79. The fact that our captain felt so frustrated and upset that he needed to kick something is irrelevant and completely understandable. I’ve felt like crying and punching something all day and I wasn’t on the pitch. Imagine the pain and frustration of the whole injustice of the game as a whole. I’m glad Gallas showed his pain, we need this pain. We’re like the Incredible Hulk, you won’t like us when we’re angry. And believe it, we’re all VERY, VERY ANGRY.

Although we can’t change what’s happened to Eduardo, we can use this event to hold on and fight for this title. All season long we’ve been hearing that word from Arsene and many of the players. Well now is definitely the time to back those words up with some affirmative action. We need to play against every team with this pain in our hearts in order to know what we have to lose if we don’t.

This article was called “The Paradox Of Football” because something happened on February 23rd 2008 on Saturday afternoon, as one player’s career was ended (at least for the immediate future) another’s began for real this time.

Could it be fate that on the same day as on of most promising strikers gets injured, another promising striker finally found his strength and will and look what happened, 2 Premier League goals.

Theo Walcott, your time is now.