Where Has It All Gone Wrong for Costa Rica Star Joel Campbell at Arsenal?

The Joel Campbell hype train was placed on its tracks during the World Cup and bolted out of the station like a bullet train after he had played a couple games. 

He only scored one goal during the entire tournament: a powerful equalizer against Uruguay in Costa Rica's first game that sprung his country's remarkable progression to the quarter-finals. He had an assist in that game, too.

His moderately impressive statistics belie the tremendous contribution he made to Costa Rica's World Cup run, though. He was the engine of his team, powering it from the front and often taking on entire defenses by himself when he had little support.

That's pretty incredible when one thinks about it. Midfields are almost exclusively teams' powerhouses, but since Costa Rica had much more talent up front than in the middle (e.g. Bryan Ruiz and Campbell) they had to adjust accordingly.

Ruiz was the trickster and Campbell was the workhorse. Campbell was practically shattered toward the end of Costa Rica's marathon match against Greece, having run ceaselessly throughout in pursuit of long passes and defenders lingering on the ball.

He turned in these tireless performances after a progressive season in Greece with Olympiakos. That is, his eight goals in 32 league appearances, per Soccerbase.com, is not stellar, but the total worth of his contributions is not shown by basic statistics.

Michael Regan/Getty Images

Campbell has a penchant for performing well in big games, as evidenced by his impressive displays at the World Cup and an extraordinary goal he bagged against Manchester United in last season's Champions League.

So when he returned to Arsenal following the World Cup, there was an exceptional level of hype for a player who had never professionally worn the red and white.

Before Arsenal played a single game this season, there was a lot of hope that Campbell would add a bit of spark and drive to the attack. Calls for the Costa Rican to enter the fray only intensified after the entire team began to flounder.

He seems to have the potential to combine the speed and work rate of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain with the goal-poaching instinct of Lukas Podolski.

Yet Campbell has only started one game for Arsenal this season and appeared three more times off the bench, not counting his brief cameo in the Community Shield.

He faces exceptionally steep competition for a place, despite the Gunners' ongoing injury woes. Arsene Wenger evidently does not see him as a central striker in the rough-and-tumble Premier League, meaning he has to vie for a place on the wings.

Michael Regan/Getty Images

That puts him against Alexis Sanchez (Arsenal's best player so far), Santi Cazorla, Podolski, Oxlade-Chamberlain and now Theo Walcott. Wenger also put Mesut Ozil on the left wing earlier in the season, making things even tougher for the club's wingers.

Now Alexis is obviously guaranteed a place in the starting XI based on his stellar performances. Cazorla has been awful, Wenger does not seem to trust Podolski and Walcott has only just returned.

Yet Wenger has still given Campbell only a smidgen of game time this season. There will be no way to judge whether he can compete at a Premier League level if he is never given the chance.

Still, it is hard to justify bringing a relatively raw and unproven young player into a team when it is most vulnerable. Wenger's decision is understandable in a sense.

Moreover, the manager has the benefit of seeing Campbell in training, and obviously has access to various metrics and opinions about which us laymen can only speculate. Wenger knows his players better than any of us.

Things will only get more difficult for Campbell now that Walcott is back and Alexis continues to power the team by himself. Perhaps the single biggest torpedo to his progress thus far was Arsenal's elimination from the Capital One Cup, which would have been his main avenue to the pitch.

But then again, how many players have actually made the jump from Cup cameos to first-team football? We always talk about the opportunity such competitions afford young players, but there is very rarely any immediate progression.

No one but Wenger really knows why Campbell has been on the fringes this season. Campbell will have to take some rather incredible steps forward right now, or his Arsenal career is almost certainly finished.

Follow @charliemelman