Arsene Wenger's Letter

Dear Soulstar,

Like everyone else at Arsenal I hope Eduardo makes a full recovery from the terrible injury he suffered at Birmingham on Saturday. His injury was the result of a very bad tackle and the first diagnosis we had after the game was very, very bad. I would not like to go into medical details because I am not qualified enough but the first news was very bad and obviously he was quickly taken to hospital. Will the injury end Eduardo's career? I don't know. I would not go as far as saying that but it does not look good.

It was a highly emotional afternoon and we were all shocked by the injury to Eduardo. On reflection though, 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. As for the game itself, Eduardo's injury affected our football 100 per cent. You could see that straight away - it had a big effect. At half time we talked about playing the game we wanted to play and I felt we did that quite well. It was very disappointing that we didn't kill off the game.

I don't believe the free-kick for Birmingham's first goal should have been given and I thought Gael Clichy's tackle was fair and did not warrant a penalty. Five minutes before that stoppage-time equaliser there was a 100 per cent penalty after Adebayor was fouled. But we have to take it, we cannot change it and we have to look at ourselves as well. We have to fight against all that. Frankly we should have killed the game off earlier and scored the third because you can get caught out by any little mistake. Thanks for your support.


Arsène Wenger