Surprise: Birmingham City's James McFadden (R)
celebrates his goal against Arsenal
Birmingham striker James McFadden scored an injury-time penalty
to stun leaders Arsenal and rescue a precious point for Alex
McLeish's strugglers.
Theo Walcott's double looked to have enabled Arsenal to overcome
a sickening leg injury to striker Eduardo after just three minutes
for which Martin Taylor was red-carded.
Bad break: Arsenal's Eduardo lay's in pain with a
suspected broken leg following a challenge by Birmingham City's
Martin Taylor
It was fully six minutes before the Gunners striker was eased
onto the stretcher before being taken from the pitch. Wenger
immediately replaced Eduardo, who will be 25 on Monday, with
Nicklas Bendtner who spent all of last season on loan at
Birmingham.
In a tactical reshuffle Blues boss McLeish took off Mikael
Forsell, brought on Parnaby at right-back and switched Stephen
Kelly to centre-half alongside Liam Ridgewell. Arsenal shrugged off
the injury setback and Cesc Fabregas showed great skill to set up a
chance for himself on the edge of the City box and his 20-yard
drive was only just too high.
Maik Taylor clung onto a low left-footed drive from Bendtner
after a mis-kick from Mathieu Flamini had fallen into his path. But
after 28 minutes Arsenal were stunned when McFadden put City ahead
with his second goal in two games.
McFadden's persistence won him a free-kick after he had shrugged
off two challenges before being brought down by Flamini. The
Scottish international took the free-kick himself and curled the
ball over the defensive wall and into the roof of the net even
though Manuel Almunia got his fingertips to the ball.
Adebayor squandered a golden chance to level matters when he
raced onto a through ball from Fabregas. The ball sat up nicely as
Maik Taylor came off his line but Adebayor scooped his shot over
the crossbar. The chances were starting to come more regularly for
the Gunners and an Alexander Hleb cross picked out Adebayor who
directed his header wide when he would have expected to at least
hit the target.
But in first half injury-time McFadden could have doubled
Birmingham's lead. He seized onto a pass from Sebastian Larsson and
beat the offside trap but, with only Almunia to beat, put his shot
wide under pressure from Philippe Senderos.
Arsenal came out for the second half as if they meant business
and Maik Taylor tipped over a curling effort from Fabregas and a
more powerful drive from Flamini. It came as no surprise when
Walcott put Arsenal level after 50 minutes.
Maik Taylor was outjumped by Adebayor following a corner from
Fabregas and the loose ball fell to Walcott who made no mistake
from close range. It was the first league goal scored by an English
player for the Gunners since Justin Hoyte in January 2007.
It was now one-way traffic towards the Birmingham goal and
Taylor again did well to tip over a fierce shot from Hleb. But
after 55 minutes Walcott struck again to put the Gunners ahead.
This time the England Under-21 player created the goal for himself
with a mazy run before beating Maik Taylor's dive with a shot into
the corner of the net.
Adebayor was having one of those days in front of goal when
nothing was going right and he was again denied by Maik Taylor
after bursting clear of the Blues defence as Arsenal ran out
comfortable winners.
Then in injury-time McFadden rescued a point for the home side
from the penalty spot.
McFadden was on form at St Andrew's
