Joel Campbell says he’s hoping to play for Arsenal next season believing he has the quality to succeed in the Premier League.
The Costa Rican international has yet to feature for the Gunners since signing in 2011 with work permit delays necessitating loan spells at Lorient in Ligue 1 and Real Betis in La Liga. Nevertheless, having impressed at Olympiakos scoring 7 goals in 24 appearances this season and with the necessary paperwork secured he’s hoping Arsene Wenger offers him an opportunity in England.
“As soon as Arsenal came, I wanted to join them and I believe I am ready to play for Arsenal next season,” he told Sky Sports ahead of his loan side’s Champions League clash with Manchester United.
“I know I have the capacity to play there. I am only waiting for the opportunity. With hard work I know I can get there.
“They [United] showed an interest in me when I was moving to Europe but I have been an Arsenal fan since I was a child and that’s why I chose them.”
Of his time in Greece he added, “This has been a very good experience. I am trying to do my best, to do better and continue growing as a footballer. It is why I chose Olympiakos. This is a big team with the opportunity to play in the Champions League, the most important competition in Europe.
“The league here is not as competitive as in Spain but it is a good place for me to grow as a player. We have a strong team, with competition for places. Every day I try to learn something from Javi Saviola. The life here is good, the food and the weather.”
Arsenal fans will no doubt be keeping an eye on Campbell this evening hoping he upstages Robin van Persie. Nights like this are certainly an opportunity to put himself in the shop window and with a World Cup on the horizon – Costa Rica have been drawn in England’s group – there’s plenty of time to turn Wenger’s head or indeed those of other suitors.
He needs to get rid of those Ashley Young swan dives first… some of his efforts are genuinely hilarious.
So their not trying to make it a perminant stay?
They are, but Arsenal still has the last word. Also it says something about the quality of the player when a club tries to do that (even if it’s just a club from a Greek league).
Play your cards right son and you could join this list, Wengers top 10 Strikers;
1.Henry
2.Bergkamp
3.Anelka
4.Adebayor
5.Wright
6.Eduardo
7.Hartson
8.Wiltord
9.Kanu
10.Diawarra or Jeffers
Cannot believe you missed Giroud out of the list.
Baptista should be included for his 4 at Anfield alone.
…and surprising or not, I’d have Bentner ahead of Jeffers (to be fair I’d my my Aunt Mary ahead of Jeffers)
What about Park?
In all fairness your aunt Mary has a lovely first touch,and I’m not on about football.
Indeed, the way she caresses balls is something else.
not to mention her heading…
Alan Smith??
Adebayor above Wright? For Dennis’s sake why!?
She sucks big time 😉
If your putting another turncoat in at number four than its silly not to include van persie on the list.
I know it could very easily just be spin, but I’m quite impressed by what appears to be a huge amount of patience considering he signed almost 3 years ago now.
I’m hopeful he turns out to be a good’n.
He’s not been able to get a work permit apparently so it’s not like he could have been here any sooner.
We wouldn’t have bothered unless he’s good enough given how much of nightmare it is to sign players from South America and i think we would have sold him when his stock was high after his loan spell at Betis. They seemed pretty keen on him.
At least he’s had a taste of Champions League football at Olympiakos, fingers crossed he can get on so they can get past United!
It certainly is such a nightmare to sign South Americans, so it’s a good thing that he’s from Costa Rica. =)
If you want to be pedantic;
It’s such a nightmare to sign South, Central and some ‘North’ Americans. (as Mexico insists it’s north America!)
But… But… All the papers said he wanted to stay in Greece forever and ever and ever and never come back to Arsenal.
This bastards lied to us!!
*These
Or the papers lied to us???
It was all down to a misquote, he wanted to star in Grease the musical when it tours Blackpool
Javier Pedro Saviola
Too much of an ask that he recovers the ball from Januzaj and leaves him in a whimpering heap after a legal slide tackle, outruns Rooney, nut megs Evra on the edge of the box before twatting in a goal off RVP’s head tonight?
….or am I being unreasonable
Doing one of those, he’ll be cheered on by a lot of sick Gooners.
Doing all that in one go, he’ll get a statue. By the way, have we got enough space for more statues?
while I would very much enjoy watching that, it’d be a good deal to see him just legitimately beat cuntsie’s contribution for the night and put a goal or five past them
AND CAMPBELL PUTS ONE AWAY! 2-0 Olympiacos ahahahaha
How about he scores a hat trick , twats the entire united team and then twats Moyes on the way to an early bath for good measure?
Aw, Moyes hasn’t done anything to make me dislike him. He’s no Motormouth Mourinho. Actually by turning Man United into a mid-table team, I think he deserves a statue too.
I hope he comes back and kicks some arse.
Especially being a gooner.
Seem a good prospect, but with Sanogo and Giroud already on ground, what we need now is a world class striker and not another kid coming in to struggle in the premier league. #MyOpinion
the phrase “world class” makes me feel as if I was reading a cheap newspaper. Is there an England class, a Greece class or a Spain class … ? Are they all better than a Costa Rica class?
There are only good footballers and good players.
Campbell offers what the other 2 do not, speed. Campbell reminds me of a young Eto’o from his Mallorca days, not outstanding, but showing glimpses. So move him in front of a productive midfield and you get the Eto’o of Barcelona. Lethal.
Was Eto’o ever young? According to Maureen he’s about 57 years old now.
At least we know Campbell is for sure, young.
#thisisn’ttwitter #stophashtagging #it’sannoying
#youtoobuddyorelse!
Pacy, tall, strong and can finish. Basic ingredients to be a good player. Getting good experience in Greece and champs league. Looking forward to watching him for the first time competively.
Not tall
Score a couple against Utd and we can talk about it.
OT
Wtf there’s a Na$ri ad at the bottom of this page (mobile version), do something blog!
ads are all in your domain – if you see a cunt, chances are you saw the cunt before.
Ads are based on your browsing history. I’ll pretend you said “hot naked women” instead of Nasri. Better erase that history pronto.
Precisely, this is why tonight’s game earns some significance for me. Lets see how he fares against mid-table premier league defence, then we can pick it up from there.
Twating a goal off rvp nuts would be more reasonable.i wont mind a serious injury on his nuts as he seeks for early retirement from football becus of it.praying hard.
We already have enough competition on the Flanks with the likes of Gnarby and Miyachi. He will most probably be sold next year. Nevertheless, I hope he does well today.
It’s impossible to have ‘enough’ quality players in any position.
Hopefully he’s good enough (or better) but if he isn’t, he’ll be sold.
I saw the headline and thought – is it Sol or Kevin?
Miles, miles better than Bendtner. Looking forward to seeing him play for the Arsenal next season. Ozil could set up shedloads of goals for him.
Scored against Italy if I remember correctly? Must have something about him. I’d like to see him have a chance here at the very least. Will watch United tonight just so I can see him in action.
Scored against Spain as well.
When I saw the headline I thought of Sol Campbell instead
“As soon as Arsenal came, I wanted to join them..”
Is this one of Arseblog’s piss taking articles or Campbell is having a laugh? Or did I dream up about the time he made poor Dick Law and order wander around Isla Nublar all alone? I am now confused..
It think that was he manager rather than the lad himself.
HAHAHA MOURINHO MANDE MY DAY “WHO KNOWS HOW OLD ETOO IS?”HAHAHHAHAHA
he has 4 passports with different ages on 😉
One for the future,
No doubt,
he will score tonight.
utd to lose 3-1.
Worst haiku ever!
Great avatar!
I’m all for the club signing players that have been fans from childhood.
Nothing better to see a player that wants to die for the shirt.
Agreed, like Jenkinson, Campbell, or Van Pers…. ah….
There will always be an exception from the rule
*to the rule
Think he’ll get a run in the team next year at the expense of Ryo who’ll probably get shipped out on loan.
Wait.Wasn’t just a feew weeks ago that he was so happy at Olympiacos that he wanted a permanent deal?
If he talks about good weather….its a bit Reyes-esque!
Think that was more his agent!
He’ll come back to Arsenal for next season settle in (League & FA Cup,dead rubbers in Europe) then he’ll have a solid following season hitting 12 goals or so.The season after that he’ll be a revelation hitting 33 goals in all competitions before he’s sold to Man City that summer for 125 million pounds.
That was so last season.
If he is good enough for Arsenal now, then why did we not just sign Mitroglou instead? Only cost Fulham 12mill. While Campbell got 7 goals in 24 games, Mitroglou got 4 hattricks this season, 1 of those in Champions League, and over the last 2 Seasons he have scored more goals than he have started games. Not counting games coming on as sub. This season he had 17 goals in 19 appearances. Now i would take 17 goals in 19 games over 7 in 24 games any day of the week. Hehe I dont think we need another 1… Read more »
Campbell plays on the right wing for them, but looks an accomplished finisher too.
Oh, i thought he mostly played as a striker. But i researched it now, and your right. Primarily play as a Winger for them. He also got 10 assists to on top of his 7 goals. Will be funn to see what he can do. Bit we allready got 2 young excellent Wingers in Walcott and the Ox on the right wing, and Gnabry coming up. Will be tough to fight for a place in the team for him. But i would like to see him get a chance next season. And if he is still way off in quality,… Read more »
who is sol campbell i’ve never heard of him another young frenchman we don’t need wengerout !!
I’ve watched him in CONCACAF and he’s pretty damn good.
Hullo! Just saw that arsenal youth team are playing tonight and figured this article is somewhat (kinda) related, and id quite like to watch it (online) is that possible? Seems unlikely, and if its not is it ever possible?
Thanks.
Actually dw ha, wouldnt mind watching Campbell living out many of your dreams and cunting Man u.
@ the Ox is a fox
Silly comment about ‘World Class’. We all know exactly what world class means. It makes perfect sense. Wally.
We dont want him at Arsenal. Every Arsenal fan knows that we need an experienced world class striker with pace and good movement. Giroud and Sanogo are there for rotation, plus Walcott can and wants to play there. 1 world class fw = puzzle complete.
Campbell’s return to Arsenal can be very interesting. His stature, physic, speed and hopefully eye for goal will be an asset and possibly a good target for Ozil’s creativity passing (bringing out the best of the Oz wizardry) ….. the likes of speedsters Walcott, Ramsey, Gnabry with the trickery and technique of Carzola, Rosicky, Wilshere, and the steadfast Mert, Kos, Flame…. the whammy shots of Podi, and Giroud’s holdup play and the wings of flight of Gibbs, Sagna (hopefully) Will e truly to look foward to the next season. A few critical purchases will do more good than harm!!
you know, when you say it like that, I wonder again—we have a team, almost, that could play the power football, it just isn’t doing it for some reason. One part of it is of course injuries, all the pace is on the treatment table. But aside from Rosicky, and Cazorla when he has some runners around him, there is no one speeding the game up. Like I said on here a few days ago, I’m just waiting, waiting, for us to have a really angry, pacy game against one of the rivals. Damn it! How Arsenal used to move… Read more »
Certainly an option if we do not find anything in the market. That said, there will be plenty of movement with regards top names this summer. Campbell has a fantastic platform to build upon a very decent season at Olympiakos in the forthcoming World Cup. If he impresses, he may just make a case for himself. Counting in his favour is the number of positions we simply have to invest in this summer – Back Up Keeper, Cback, RBack, If those positions take on more resource than needed, Wenger may consider Campbell as a cheaper option up front. With Giroud… Read more »
Why will there be plenty of movement with regards top names this summer?
Campbell is a poor man’s Sanogo.
Or… Is it the other way around? Hmmm…
Oh dear, the little boy inside & the scouse multi millionaire seem to having problems with the poor costa rican gooner, does townsend not understand that we are all not suedo reds
And he’s just scored. So Arsenal can mess up United’s season
….Nd he scores….
BOOM!!!
How d’ya like those red and white apples manure?!
400,000 k a week and rooney would have pullled it out for them
Last night he booked his ticket to the Emirates.
A youth player performing in the champions league? Knocking out the champions of ’08.
Definitely at a higher level than Sanogo.
He’s a lifelong gunners fan too.
COME ON YOU JOEL CAMPBELL!!
Excited to see him next season.
With Theo yet to begin training I think we will be very happy with Campbell biting his fingers alongside Giroud, Sagna, Diaby, Zelalem, Rosicky, and Howard on the bench as we begin our 1st title defense with this team,