Arsenal: Joel Campbell should be returning to replace Theo Walcott

Arsenal may be acting very unfairly towards Lucas Perez, but Joel Campbell came first. Yet somehow Campbell can still have a happy ending.

Arsene Wenger is a very fair manager, and he is becoming more fair lately, as he has made some tough decisions to drop long-time favorites from the regular Arsenal squad and diminish their role.

But for as fair as the man is, he has certain, seemingly inexplicable bouts of unfairness. Lucas Perez is obviously the freshest in our minds, as that horror show is still ongoing, with Lucas’s transfer being denied due to the offered fee being too low.

Someone came before Lucas, though, and that someone was Joel Campbell. The Costa Rican attacker seemed to have everything in line after his debut season in 2015/16, but after being wrongly replaced by Alex Iwobi and forced to sit behind a then-inconsistent Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and everyone’s (mainly Wenger’s) favorite, Theo Walcott, he seemed to be frozen out of the club.

Fast forward to today and there is still – somehow, some way – hope that a happy ending can be found.

Campbell’s Twitter account has confirmed what many suspected – he is back with the first team and, but his own admission, he is happy about that. After a pretty successful loan spell in Portugal, his return was not expected. Everyone thought he’d be sold, but seeing as how selling is apparently even harder than buying, he’s in an Arsenal kit again.

Supporters, in their desperation, are calling out to Campbell to save their still-young season and, quite honestly, it might not be as silly as it sounds. After all, Campbell had one hell of an impact in his brief tenure in the first team.

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As I always say about him, his biggest strength was in his unpredictability, which offered such a wonderful contrast compared to the rest of the Gunners attack, which often times went stale trying the same things over and over.

Against Stoke City – and against Leicester City too – Wenger has had to turn to Theo Walcott late in games and in both cases, the Englishman was completely irrelevant. It felt like Wenger had taken someone off without putting anyone else on.

To add some context to that claim, consider that Walcott came on to play 16 minutes plus stoppage time against Leicester and 12 minutes plus stoppage time against Stoke. Granted, that’s not a lot of time, but Olivier Giroud hasn’t had much more and he’s at the very least taken two shots, scored one, created two chances and won five aerial duels.

Walcott has managed just seven touches. No shots. No chances created. Nothing. Although he has been dispossessed once and flagged offside once.

That’s pathetic and it’s not helpful in the least. Joel Campbell can be helpful. Give him twenty eight minutes and I guaran-damn-tee you at least a couple shots and some audacious runs at the defense.

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Which is what subs are supposed to do. They are supposed to go at the opposition hard knowing that they were brought on to make a difference.

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