The return of Eduardo- straight into the lineup?

While a lot has been made and said of Arsenal’s lack of strength-in-depth and the lack of true quality players as backup the club’s starting eleven (though this may have been somewhat quashed by Tuesday’s dazzling 6-0 Carling Cup thrashing of Sheffield United), one player’s quality in the Arsenal artillery has never been in doubt.

Brazilian-born Eduardo had been hailed by Arsenal boss Arsène Wenger as the Premier League’s most lethal finisher. Although this may seem slightly biased, especially considering that it came from none other than the man who signed the 25 year-old Croatian international for a fee in excess of £7 million, OPTA statistics have certainly shown that Eduardo was among the top three players in terms of chances converted prior to his horror injury at Birmingham in February. Indeed, Eduardo has received rave reviews from various other directions, including his international manager, Slaven Bilic and well-renowned Sky Sports co-commentator and match summariser Andy Gray, a prolific striker himself from back in the day.

The real question that Wenger must have surely began pondering in preparation of Eduardo’s pre-Christmas return is should Eduardo be given a place straight in the starting lineup, i.e. ahead of Emmanuel Adebayor or Robin van Persie? A dilemma indeed!

In order to answer that question, I suppose each of the aforementioned players’ virtues and limitations should be examined firmly under the microscope.

The Adebayor-van Persie partnership certainly seemed to be Wenger’s “fantasy” combination during pre-season and in the early weeks of the current campaign. However, whether this was out of choice or simply due to the circumstances of Eduardo’s absence is not entirely known.

Looking at the simple facts, Adebayor has been our most prolific striker over the past twelve months. But does this grant him an automatic first team starting place, especially after an inconsistent start to the season, not forgetting his summer flirtings with some of Europe’s biggest clubs and how a credible chunk of the supporters have yet to forgive him? The Arsenal fans’ views of Adebayor have certainly been mixed from day 1, where I have personally seen people switch from adoring his power and goalscorer’s instincts to absolutely crying in anguish over how many offsides the man is capable of generating per match in a matter of minutes.

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