jones wrote:
Klaus wrote:
Because I don't see it with Campbell. I see it with Chamberlain. I saw it with Coquelin. I can only advocate for my own opinion, jonesy. And from my point of view Campbell looks pretty pointless. I watched a bit of him at Villarreal too earlier this year, and apart from a single goal he didn't do much in his 20 appearances for them either. Zero assists. Judging by most accounts no one seems to miss him over there at all.
But fair enough, you should never write off a player categorically. Age is still on his side for a little while. It's possible that Campbell ups his game and starts looking like a proper footballer at some point, but it's just not going to happen at Arsenal. Which makes it pointless to put any more minutes into his development unless we absolutely have to. We're better off hoping that Chamberlain grabs the goal he needs to get a bit of a confident boost.
Fair enough, in the end it boils down to the subjective question of whether you rate him or not, I've seen enough for me to think there's some promise. But stats like I've alluded to earlier really don't come into this, if we're looking at Campbell's stats at Villarreal where he played for about three months after not having played at all for half a year then what does that say about Chamberlain's three goals last season playing in a much stronger and settled environment?
I think it says something about him first and foremost that he so easily gets into the team ahead of Campbell at said settled environment.
But more importantly, the reason for Chamberlain's relative lack of development is injuries. Campbell had been playing uninterrupted first team football for years when we took him back last season. Chamberlain has suffered three difficult long-term injuries in the last three seasons. You get these little growth spurts where he's absolutely killing it, and then he tears a hamstring or does his knee in and spends a few months on the sideline again.
I don't know if you noticed, but he was interviewed by The Guardian a few weeks ago and he claimed that he had been playing with constant pain for the last two years. At times it got so bad that he couldn't get out of bed or sit up straight in the sofa. All the heavy injuries changed his biomechanics slightly. Most of his secondary injuries last season could be linked to the knee damage. It's been an uphill struggle for him for some time now. It's important with that in mind that he gets minutes on the pitch right now without too many expectations on his performances. His development needs it. There's no doubt in my mind that we're better off in the long run giving these games to Chamberlain, even if he's only marginally better than Campbell in the present.
