Should Arsenal Let Joel Campbell Leave the Club in the January Transfer Window?
For Joel Campbell, the past few weeks must have made the past few years seem worth it.
Signed by Arsenal from Costa Rican club Saprissa in 2011, the forward headed on four different loan spells—at Lorient, Real Betis, Olympiakos and Villarreal—before finally making a start in the Premier League in the recent 3-0 win at Swansea City, a result which he garnished with his first Gunners goal.
And so after seemingly waiting a lifetime to make an impact at a club he’s actually been a part of for a lot longer than some of his team-mates, here was Campbell scoring a goal and featuring against the likes of Bayern Munich and Tottenham Hotspur. He had finally arrived.
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Yet now, all of sudden, he might be departing again.
At least that is the view of Luke Gardener in the Daily Star, who cited reports from talkSPORT that the forward will depart the Emirates Stadium in January, with both Galatasaray and Fenerbahce vying for the signature of a player who shone for his country at the 2014 World Cup.
Really, though? Should Arsenal allow Campbell to leave now when he’s started their last four matches in all competitions? There are two ways of looking at it.
The Costa Rican will be 24 in the summer, an age when he really shouldn’t be clinging on to the hopes of occasionally getting games here and there due to the injuries of others.
You get the sense that, despite his recent run in the team, Campbell knows that he will be expected to fade away into the shadows once one, some or all of the injured trio of Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Aaron Ramsey return from their spells on the sidelines, with every indication that that will be sooner rather than later.
Given that his contract runs out in the summer and there has been no talk of a new one, he might be wise to jump ship as soon as he possibly can, in order to get settled at his new club and start feeling like an important member of the squad.
Arsene Wenger’s business head is never too far from the Frenchman’s shoulders, too, and it won’t have escaped him that letting Campbell leave in January would ensure that Arsenal get a fee for his services—however small that may be.
On the flip side, those injuries to Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Ramsey showed just how brittle the Gunners’ squad can be, and just at the precise time when they should be looking to build on a fine start to the season.
You can’t blame players for getting injured, but it seems to happen to Gunners players more often than not, and so Wenger could use a player like Campbell around to break out of his glass in case of emergency in the latter half of the campaign.
He might not be able to hold a candle to the talents of others in the Arsenal squad, but Campbell remains a willing runner, and he will happily cover the ground in pursuit of both lost causes and precious points.
He probably should leave Arsenal, and it would be a shock to see him not wearing the shirt of another club in the 2016/17 season, but where is the harm in keeping him around until the end of this campaign as he runs down his contract? It’s not quite Steven Gerrard’s long Liverpool goodbye, but Campbell could still have his uses for Wenger.
In the forward’s ideal world these fleeting cameos he’s made in the absences of others would be enough to get Wenger and the fans onside, with a shiny new contract being his reward, but that’s surely not going to happen now.
Campbell’s made a short impact over a long time, but while his future clearly lies away from the Emirates, Arsenal might be better off ensuring that he at least sticks around until the summer to see just where this season’s storyline is headed.
He might find his patience being rewarded.
