Eduardo...Diaby...Ramsey...is Saka next?

It's common knowledge that every fan thinks it's their own club the refs are biased against. Very few fans believe in conspiracy theories...unless their club is the target of the conspiracy. However, when it comes to Bukayo Saka, we have more than cognitive dissonance, more than confirmation bias, more than corrupt incompetence (or was it incompetent corruption?). We have ample evidence of the objective variety that there's something wrong with how he's being treated by opposing players and by referees. It's getting to the worrisome point that he may have to suffer some kind of injury before those referees take off the blinders and start holding those players accountable. 

From Dinamo and beyond, the dominos shall fall...

For once, we've escaped a Group of Death, having drawn Bayern (who else?), Olympiacos, and Dinamo Zagreb. The former two are old friends, of course, but we haven't squared off against Zagreb since 2006-07, when we thrashed them by a 5-1 aggregate in the Champions League playoff (and first-ever win at the new Emirates Stadium!). That would be the season in which a certain Eduardo da Silva would entice us enough to sign him the following summer—among other exploits, he did score the Blues' one goal against at the Emirates in the second leg. Ah, Eduardo. We hardly knew ye. Somewhere in there is some symbolism: last weekend, we saw off Stoke, breakers of Ramsey's leg, and will face the Blues this coming weekend. 'Twixt the two, we'll face a Blues club that sold us a player whose leg would be broken. A defter wielder of words than I could forge something from that. Enough. On to the preview...

"Striker returns from injury with wonder-goal against Burnley"

We're all waiting anxiously for the return of Theo Walcott to make his first first-team appearance since tearing his ACL back in January 2014. While we're waiting, it might be worth a quick look back at an earlier return from an admittedly more-gruesome injury. I refer of course to Eduardo "Dudu" da Silva, who returned from that broken leg to score a wonderful goal against Burnley in the FA Cup, turning Alex Song's cross into the net off his ankle:

For those seeking further symbolism, this was also a match that saw Theo Walcott return to action after injuring his shoulder and missing four months of action. Interesting parallels, to be sure, but let's hope that's as far it goes, seeing as how Eduardo never quite regained the form he showed before having his leg snapped so brutally.

I'll offer you Mark Twain's thoughts on the subject: "history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes".