Eduardo makes it a night to remember
1 comment February 17th, 2009
He broke his leg but now he’s back and Darren Bent is still about as much use as an ejector seat in a helicopter. You know who I’m referring to:
Eduardo da Silva; Arsenal’s Number Nine
Arsenal 4 – 0 Cardiff City (Eduardo 20, 60 (pen), Bendtner 34, Van Persie 89)
Highlights here; Arsene’s reaction here
There are matches one knows will stay in the memory. Some because they are landmarks in the clubs history – bookends, say, in the life of a stadium. The last day at Highbury and the christening of the Emirates with Dennis Bergkamp’s tesimonial will be remembered for obvious reasons.
There are other games that linger in the consciousness because they have exceptional sentimental value, and last night was one of those. Ordinarily there’d be little reason to recall a comfortable FA Cup fourth round victory over a Championship side like Cardiff.  But last night, one Brazilian/Croatian hybrid with an eye for goal and an extraordinary capacity for recovery etched this fixture firmly into my mind.
I hadn’t expected Eduardo to start, but as soon as I heard he was going to ‘the goal’ seemed inevitable. As it was, it arrived after only twenty minutes: an emphatic header to meet the impressive Vela’s flighted cross. After the ball hit the net, the striker knelt on the ground, fists clenched, silently celebrating having ascended the final step in his monumental climb back to first-team football.
The catharsis of that moment seemed to liberate the team, and the chances flowed. Nicklas Bendtner, who on another night might have had more than just the one goal, nodded home expertly, and only an excellent performance from Tom Heaton in the Cardiff goal kept the score to 2-0 at half-time.
Before Eduardo departed to a standing ovation with an hour or so gone, he had time to add another goal from the penalty spot, before running to embrace Tony Colbert – the man who has overseen the number nine’s year-long recuperation. Eduardo’s replacement, Robin van Persie, was just as effective, finishing Cardiff off with his ever-solidifying ‘chocolate leg’ after being slid through by Nicklas Bendtner.
Four nil was probably an accurate reflection of the dominance we displayed, and having scored just one goal in our last four games, it was a welcome return for exciting, attacking football. Cardiff were poor, but hopefully this will give us confidence going into the weekend’s game with Sunderland. And now we know our draw for the next couple of rounds will be bereft of big teams, we have a really good chance of going some way in the FA Cup.
More on Usmanov and all that nonsense tomorrow. In spite of an excellent team performance, today’s blog only really ought about one man. Welcome back, Eddy.
