Martin Taylor said last night that nothing would give
him greater pleasure than to see Eduardo da Silva back scoring
goals. Speaking publicly for the first time since the tackle that
broke Eduardo's left leg, the Birmingham defender also revealed
details of his visit to the Croatia international at Selly Oak
Hospital.
"I will be really happy on the day when I see he is back in the
Arsenal and Croatia line-up and when he is scoring goals again,"
Taylor said. "The injury was terrible enough. When he gets back to
fitness and he puts the ball in the net for Arsenal for the first
time, we will all feel much better. People will be able to see that
accidents like these are the nature of football and you can recover
from it.
"I went to see him on Saturday but, unfortunately, he was still
recovering from an operation, so first thing on Sunday morning I
went to the hospital and he was really good to see me."
Taylor admitted he was worried how Eduardo would react. "I was
mindful of this," he added, "and I thought maybe he wouldn't want
to see me, which would have been fair enough because of the trauma.
Although there was a language barrier, I just said that I didn't
mean him any harm at all and that I hoped he made a quick
recovery.
"He took it on board and nodded. I was just really glad we could
communicate. He is obviously a really strong man. Since then I have
read in the papers that he would be happy for me to visit him.
That's something I'd like to do."