Sol Campbell close to St James’ Park switch.
Posted on July 27th, 2010 | 115 Comments |
There have been strong rumours about the the 35-year former England international and a move to Newcastle throughout the summer, although the rumours have cooled recently.
In fact the last thing I heard was that Campbell was going back to Arsenal for this season, so something has changed along the way, but what? We’ll probably find out tommorrow as that is when Sol should be confirmed as a Newcastle player, providing everything goes to plan with his medical of course.
To be honest, I was a tad sceptical when I first read the link with Campbell and Newcastle al those weeks back, but my opinion has somewhat changed now and I actually believe that he could be a good signing for a year or two. For me, Campbell showed that he still has the ability to play at the top level when he turned out for Arsenal last season, and he was sursprisingly quick still in the sprint tests according to his fellow professionals.
Campbell would bring more than just defensinve cover on the pitch, something that we desperately need in my opinion, but it is also his experience that could prove to be invauable for us this season. Campbell has very much ‘been there and done it’ in the Premier League, and perhaps he can shift some of that knowledge onto our current defenders.
Think about it, it would be the first time that Steven Taylor actually has an experienced defender working with him. Hopefully some of Campbell’s experience and knowledge can rub off on him and smooth some of the rough edges off his game.
That is heading into the coaching territory now, but that is something that Campbell could be interested in getting in to. In fact, nobody knows the details of the deal yet and I would be pretty chuffed if Campbell signed on as a player coach.
In my mind it is a decent bit of business, especially given that we only actually have two central defenders fit. Campbell knows the score, he knows Hughton, and now he has married into them, he knows what the club means to the fans.
Welcome aboard Sol, possibly.
would have preffered the young Yohan Benalouane from St.Etienne