Arsenal striker Eduardo da Silva has been released from hospital just five days after breaking his leg.

The Arsenal striker suffered the horrific injury when he was caught by Birmingham's Martin Taylor in the 2-2 draw at St Andrews on Saturday.

He has spent the last four nights in a London hospital but the club has confirmed he has been allowed to leave.

The Croatian faces a lengthy spell on the sidelines and is certain to miss the rest of this season and Euro 2008 in the summer.

An Arsenal statement on their website said: "The club can confirm that Eduardo has now been released from hospital, where he had been since sustaining his injury against Birmingham City.

"Eduardo would like to once again thank everyone for the overwhelming messages of support he has received."

The Croatia striker's national team boss Slaven Bilic told BBC Radio 5 Live he did not blame Taylor for the injury.

"The injury made the tackle look bad," Bilic said.

"You see many tackles like that, almost every week.

"That's perhaps wrong for football but I'm sure Martin Taylor is a sportsman and he wanted to play the ball.

"On another occasion Eduardo could have received a worse tackle and got away without injury - everything went wrong but Eduardo knows Taylor didn't do it deliberately."

More news from SportingLife.com