Is Eduardo's name on the FA Cup?

The fairytale comeback continues.

Eduardo da Silva played in only his second game yesterday since his return from injury - both in the FA Cup - and scored Arsenal's second goal in a 3-0 win over Burnley.

And what a goal it was, a first-time volley with the outside of his left boot of a falling diagonal ball. (If you haven't seen it, it's worth looking up on YouTube, bearing more than a passing resemblance to Paolo di Canio's goal-of-the-season leaping volley against Wimbledon in 2000.)

Given the long and torturous nature of Eduardo's year-long rehabilitation, it is likely that Arsene Wenger will use him sparingly for the rest of the season to avoid further complications - he had already suffered a hamstring injury an hour into his competitive return which put him back on the sidelines for three weeks. My guess is he will continue to start in the FA Cup and be used sparingly off the bench in the Premier League and Champions League to give the likes of Robin van Persie a breather. With three goals in his two FA Cup games so far, I'm not complaining if this is the policy Wenger pursues.

In football, pundits often talk about 'teams of destiny' or a team's name being on a Cup. I'm beginning to wonder - it's the dreamer in me - if Eduardo might just be a player of destiny whose name is on the FA Cup.

I doubt too many right-thinking neutrals would begrudge him a fairy-tale ending in the FA Cup final on May 30th, should Arsenal overcome Hull and Chelsea to get there. (Mind you, given that this season's Cup final takes place after the Champions League final and therefore represents the final leg of Manchester United's potential quintuple, maybe some would.)

On a related note, Wenger had in mind the tackle by Martin Taylor which broke Eduardo's leg when he spoke last Thursday about his desire to see extremely dangerous tackles punished more vigorously than the standard three-match ban meted out for violent conduct.

"They [the Football Association] could create a special committee to analyse if a three-game suspension is enough or not. But I feel that 10 matches is not enough for some of the tackles we have seen. I have seen some horrible tackles this season and I don't think the punishment is sufficient. Kevin Nolan's tackle on Victor Anichebe the other week was horrendous. An accident can happen when two people go for the ball but it is very rare. What I see is that guys go into the tackle to hurt the player. There is not sufficient punishment. Maybe we need to be stronger with our own players but sometimes you see the players make horrendous tackles and then say to the referee, 'What's wrong there?' You think, 'my friend, touch your head because you have completely lost touch with reality'. It is unbelievable but they know what they have done. I like tackling because it’s a fantastic technique. What I don’t like is when the referees punish all the tackles without distinction and I’m scared that might force the good tackles out of the game."

As ever, much of what Wenger said makes sense. Really and truly, how much of a disincentive is the current system whereby a serial offender - Lucas Neill, say - who repeatedly escapes sanction for dangerous tackles and picks up perhaps one three-match ban a season on the exceptional occasion when he is actually sent off (and for which he is unlikely to be fined by his club)?

As Wenger indicates, the danger is that football continues down the route of outlawing all tackles in order to prevent the really bad ones, which is something nobody wants to see. After all, part of football's entertainment value is that it is a physical, contact sport.

I have no desire to start a witch hunt here, and certainly there have been some ludicrous, over-reacting suggestions in the past, such as banning the perpetrator indefinitely until their victim regains fitness. (How, for instance, do you punish a player who inflicts a career-ending injury on an opponent?) Any potential solution needs to be both practicable and proportionate. Why should a deliberate knee-high stamp receive the same punishment as a simple bad tackle from behind? After all, our criminal justice system doesn't hand out the same sentence for murder as it does for bopping someone on the nose on a Friday night after closing time, nor should it.

I would much rather see a sliding scale where the punishment fits the crime. Here's my three-point plan:

1. Give players, say, an eight match ban - that's about 20% of the season - for the most dangerous of foul tackles, and then hit the offender where it really hurts by issuing a mandatory fine in keeping with the length of the ban. (This could be donated to a suitable charity.)

2. Punish repeat offenders with longer bans, in the same way that a player currently receives a longer ban for a second red card than he does for his first. (There are plenty of precedents in criminal and civil law for this.)

3. Finally, use video evidence so that clear instances where serious foul play has occurred do not go unpunished simply because the officials missed the incident completely or only issued a booking.

It's probably not the best solution, but it's surely better than what we currently have, isn't it?