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ARSENAL: Euro 2008: 'You need two to replace Eduardo'

/noticias.info/ It's Euro 2008 Week on Arsenal.com as we count down the final days to this summer's tournament in Austria and Switzerland.

A total of seven Arsenal players will represent their countries at this year's European Championship: Cesc Fabregas, Robin van Persie, William Gallas, Philippe Senderos, Johan Djourou, Lukasz Fabianski and Jens Lehmann. We're including Germany's No 1 because he is not quite at the end of his Arsenal contract.

Of course, injuries have restricted the number of Gunners who will be in action this month. It's quite conceivable that Eduardo, Tomas Rosicky and Bacary Sagna would also be involved if they were not sidelined.

We asked leading journalists from each country affected to explain just how much the injured Gunners will be missed at Euro 2008.

Eduardo - Croatia
Drazen Brajdic, Vecernji List: "Last week I was talking to Igor Stimac - he used to play in England for West Ham and Derby - and now he is the president of the Union of the teams of our Premiership. He is a columnist for our newspaper and he told me that Dudu is so important for the Croatian team that we can thank him for 30 per cent of the national team's success in the qualifying games for Euro 2008. Stimac says that we cannot replace Dudu with one player, only with a couple of players who have better movement and passing. Nobody can replace him like for like because he can score from nothing. You do not need a big chance for Dudu to score the goal. For other players you have to create the chance but Dudu can be nowhere for 89 minutes and suddenly he can score from a difficult position."

Tomas Rosicky - Czech Republic
Karel Haring, Deniksport: "It will be a massive miss for the Czech national team because Tomas is a key player for this team. He has a different role in the national team because he doesn't play from the left side, he is a typical playmaker. The coach, Bruchner, admitted that he is irreplaceable in this team. Without Rosicky he has to change the system of playing. I think after the information that Tomas would not play at Euro 2008, a lot of Czech people lost optimism. If you compare the midfield line which played in Euro 2004 and World Cup 2006 there was Poborsky, Rosicky, Nedved and Galasek - top class players. Now we have much less renowned players. They won a very important game against Germany last year without Rosicky - one game - but it's fair to say that Germany probably didn't play with full concentration because they had already qualified."

Bacary Sagna - France
Philippe Auclair, France Football: "Bacary will be missed an awful lot. Obviously Willy Sagnol will replace him but he has had an up-and-down season with injuries. The other possible right backs are nowhere near Sagna in terms of skill, talent, resilience and decisiveness, or effectiveness going forward. It's a pity because I thought Bacary would be fit. But at a major tournament you have to be completely fit because you play three days in a short space of time in the group stage." notas_de_prensa_archivo