Arsenal’s Eduardo could face 12-months on the sidelines after suffering a leg break as a result of a horror tackle by Birmingham’s Martin Taylor. The challenge occured after three minutes of this morning’s fixture and saw Arsenal’s Croatian international lie motionless for around seven minutes while medical staff attended to his injury. Such was the damage inflicted by the tackle, Sky Sports refrained from showing replays, while you could clealy see the shock on the faces of the Arsenal players.

Wenger was left distraught and angered after the game having seen a valued player left stricken and potentially sidelined for a very long spell. Arsenal have lost a significant goal threat at a crucial time in the season and with Van Persie still struggling for fitness, Wenger’s options now seem severely limited.

At first glance, Taylor’s tackle looked innocuous enough. However, you only have to take a look at the image on this article to see just how late, high and dangerous the challenge was.

Wenger’s reaction to the incident has been scathing and doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the Birmingham player.

“The tackle was horrendous and this guy should never play football again,” Wenger exclaimed. “What is this guy doing on the football pitch?”

The debate on the intentions of the challenge will doubtless rage on for a good while. As for the prognosis for Eduardo – there are no details as yet but as that 4thegame article states, the injury is already being compared to that suffered by Coventy’s David Busst against Man United in 1996 – an injury that ended his career and at one point almost led to amputation. That is hopefully a pessimistic view but it’s clear that Eduardo is almost certain to be out for the rest of the season and a good part of next.

”His injury is very bad. It is more than his season over”, explained Wenger. “We hope he comes back quickly but the minimum is his season is over and we are scared that it is much longer.”

Without Eduardo, Wenger may now be forced to trim a couple of weeks off of Van Persie’s planned rehabiliation. There was a suggestion that the Dutchman could return for the Champions League second leg in Milan on March 4 but Wenger put pay to that possibility in his press conference prior to today’s game.

“At the moment Robin is close to returning to the squad training next week. But he will be short for the second leg in Milan because he has not really played for five months.

Walcott’s goals today are timely and will doubtless grant him further opportunities. He seems set to start at home to Villa next weekend, prior to the second leg in Milan. Arsenal then travel to Wigan following the Milan game. Again, Walcott should have a very good chance of starting that game, with Van Persie perhaps lined up for a return against Boro at home on March 15.

Hleb could be another option over the next three games. He could be pushed up just behind Adebayor and it seems likely that Wenger will have that in mind for the trip to Milan with Diaby or Rosicky returning to the midfield.

The pressure on Adebayor to produce the goals to maintain Arsenal’s challenge is now bigger than ever. With Eduardo’s goal threat, Wenger could perhaps have turned to Bendtner to allow him to rest his leading scorer at home to Villa next weekend. Wenger would now have to gamble on a Bendtner/Walcott partnership for that game prior to the Milan trip. That looks very unlikely given that United are expected to close the gap at the top of the table in a matter of hours.