Camera issue in focus again

IN the great tradition of ‘Private Eye’ – translation: in an act of shameless ripping off – we begin today with an abject apology.

“In common with many other newspapers, we may have given the impression in the past that Arsenal’s Eduardo was a gifted football player and a great humanitarian. And, following on from the dreadful injury he sustained when playing against Birmingham in 2008 – a broken leg and dislocated ankle which was so graphic even Sky Sports put ratings to one side and refrained from showing replays of the Martin Taylor tackle – we may have misled readers into thinking that here was tragedy on an almost Shakespearean scale: a fine young sportsman cut down in his prime, the cruellest of blows not only forcing him to miss the then upcoming European Championship finals but very possibly putting his whole career in jeopardy.

Headlines such as ‘A Nation Mourns’, ‘Beauty Felled By Beast’ and ‘Our Eddie: Please Pray For Him’ might have suggested to the impressionable that we stood foursquare behind the wounded Gunner as he began his long trek back with no guarantee that this plucky and, frankly, devilishly handsome young man, would ever again regain the heights to which his sumptuous God-given talents had deservedly taken him.