Bacary Sagna reveals Eduardo's horrific leg break turned Arsenal star 'white'

Cesc Fabregas ‘was white after seeing’ the injury Eduardo da Silva suffered playing for Arsenal against Birmingham in 2008.

Bacary Sagna was part of the Arsenal team that day, who were five points clear at the top of the Premier League table, but the Gunners were visibly shaken to their core when Eduardo broke his leg and suffered an open dislocation of his ankle.

The horrific injury cause by Martin Taylor’s high tackle derailed Arsenal’s season and Sagna admittedly losing Eduardo deeply affected his team-mates.

‘It was a shock to everyone,’ Sagna told Arsenal’s ‘In Lockdown’ podcast.

‘I remember Cesc being white by seeing the impact of the injury. We were shocked because Eduardo was our brother and when someone gets hurt, everyone gets hurt.

‘I don’t know if it had an impact on the rest of the game, but for sure it was a turning point in our season.

‘We’re all different, we all express our feelings in a different way. Some will take it, some will keep going and some will struggle to do it. We are only humans.

‘I think everyone got hurt in a way, and some more than others. Unfortunately it’s part of football and we know that we can get injured quite badly. It was a bad day.

‘Unfortunately it’s part of football and we know that we can get injured quite badly. It was a bad day. We lost it all, honestly.

‘We didn’t win because we lost our player. He was scoring every single goal, he was clinical.

‘That season, every time he was in front of goal, he used to score. He was so confident. We stick together and we fight together.

‘When you lose someone, back in the day we were young and maybe we didn’t know how to deal with these kinds of injuries.

‘For most of us, it was the first time of seeing it live. We had to be able to separate feelings and work, but as I said before we’re only humans. It was just a bad day, a bad memory.’

Eduardo was taken straight to the hospital after being stretchered off the pitch and would later admit he feared he would never play again.

But the Brazilian-born Croatian did return to action a year later and would continue to play for Arsenal until he was sold to Shakhtar Donetsk in 2010.

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