Sol Campbell makes England captaincy race allegation

[Dan_85]

Great defender but definitely a bit cuckoo.

[I Hate Hleb]

Great defender but definitely a bit cuckoo.

Yep, I thought the exact same thing when I saw 1989's post! Better than Adams?

[robbo10]

Great defender but definitely a bit cuckoo.

Yep, I thought the exact same thing when I saw 1989's post! Better than Adams?

TA and Sol.both mad as a box of frogs!

[officepest]

He seems to have an axe to grind for some reason, rightly or wrongly, but I think his "captain for 10 years" remark is plain daft.

I actually think Sol may have some mental health problems but I hope I'm mistaken. He had a lot of shit to deal with after leaving the swamp (I know £80k p/w should help but money's irrelevant if you're losing your marbles).

He was a great player but I think he should keep his opinions in check somewhat.

[SteveO 35]

A captain who walked out at half time - just the leadership skills required

Stop talking bollocks Sol, FFS

[QuartzGooner]

Clearly having another of his breakdowns The man was a good centre back but never a leader of men imo - I know that some believe that some captains lead by example but I prefer a captain who talks to the players during the game and helps organising the team during the game itself. I would suggest that this would be even more important at international level when your team-mates don't have the natural telepathic understanding that comes from playing alongside guys every week at club level

Augie, not sure how you say that about Sol?
I too prefer a captain who is vocal and gesticulates, but
having watched hundreds of games from the stadiums I can say Sol was very much a talker, and a "pointer".
In fact all of Adams, Bould, Campbell, Keown, Dixon and Winterburn spent a lot of the game talking and pointing and communicating and organising, that was never a fault that could be levelled at them.

For what it is worth, my all time Arsenal team would pair Adams and Campbell as centre backs.

As for Sol's half-time walkout, I have never been angered by that.
Obviously he had something very troubling on his mind and rather than continue in a game where he was clearly struggling with concentration, he deferred in favour of a fitter player.

Adams was a great player and great captain but one can argue that drunkenly driving a car into a brick wall and missing four months of a season in jail was not professional either...but people are only humans, not robots.

Taken this from Wikipedia, list of England Captains in red, since Sol started as a professional, with deputies in black.
I think it is probably only Terry whom Sol could have been skipper instead of, but by summer 2006 when Terry took over the armband, Sol was off to Portsmouth and not at his peak.

1992–1993 Stuart Pearce Paul Ince, David Platt
1993–1995 David Platt Paul Ince, Tony Adams
1996 Tony Adams Alan Shearer
1996–2000 Alan Shearer Stuart Pearce, Paul Ince, David Seaman, Tony Adams, Sol Campbell, Martin Keown,
2000–2006 David Beckham Michael Owen, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand
2006–2010 John Terry Rio Ferdinand, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, David Beckham
2010–2011 Rio Ferdinand Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Gareth Barry

[1989]

Great defender but definitely a bit cuckoo.

Yep, I thought the exact same thing when I saw 1989's post! Better than Adams?

I don't see how that is a funny statement. Sol was a physical specimen of man, unbelievable defender, almost unbeatable at his peak (2002-2004). Not the leader TA6 was, but had more defensive ability in my humble opinion. Our best CB through the glory years, best CB in the country the year we won the league unbeaten. Also a point that doesn't get stated enough for me is how brilliant he was for England in all the big tournaments. Always turned up for them while the other England players bottled it. Had Barca not scored in the CL final, imagine how much more of a legend he would have been. Fantastic player.

[wibble]

Great defender but definitely a bit cuckoo.

Yep, I thought the exact same thing when I saw 1989's post! Better than Adams?

I don't see how that is a funny statement. Sol was a physical specimen of man, unbelievable defender, almost unbeatable at his peak (2002-2004). Not the leader TA6 was, but had more defensive ability in my humble opinion. Our best CB through the glory years, best CB in the country the year we won the league unbeaten. Also a point that doesn't get stated enough for me is how brilliant he was for England in all the big tournaments. Always turned up for them while the other England players bottled it. Had Barca not scored in the CL final, imagine how much more of a legend he would have been. Fantastic player.

But they did. I blame the defence

[clockender1]

Willie Young was a sweatie wasnt he ?

Arsenals best CB was Keown IMHO. Bould did at quiet job, Big tone was brave. Spider was up there too.

For me Keown had it all. Positional sense, aggression, determination, could head it and hoof it with either foot.

It was a crime that spastics like Pallister got chosen ahead of him for England.

Same as Dixon n Winterburn.

[DB10GOONER]

Y'know, as much as I liked and rated Sol as a brilliant CH between 2002 and 2006, I always found his interviews to be very embarrassing; he came across as arrogant and selfish and smug alot of the time. But this latest statement is just ludicrous. I am sure that sadly there is racism still in the game at every level to one extent or another, but to say he would have been Ingerland captain for 10 years if he was white is just silly. He wasn't good enough for 10 years to start with. I also don't believe the FA is racist or that the managers he played under were racist.

[goonersid]

Y'know, as much as I liked and rated Sol as a brilliant CH between 2002 and 2006, I always found his interviews to be very embarrassing; he came across as arrogant and selfish and smug alot of the time. But this latest statement is just ludicrous. I am sure that sadly there is racism still in the game at every level to one extent or another, but to say he would have been Ingerland captain for 10 years if he was white is just silly. He wasn't good enough for 10 years to start with. I also don't believe the FA is racist or that the managers he played under were racist.

I would dispute that one DB, they have an undeniable history of discrimination against foreign players, but as for Sol, he is nutter.

[Clash]

This is f-ing ridiculous from Sol. I deplore racism but too often you get people who look for it when it isn't there and as a result you get laughable claims like this one.

I remember a DVD that got produced several years ago featuring England's best post-war players. It ended by picking just 17 players but because none of them listed were black there was outrage and as a result, the DVD was withdrawn. There would probably be no black players in my top 25 post-war English players but what are people meant to do? Include a token black player? Isn't that just patronising?

Knowing Sol Campbell, if he had been given the captaincy he'd probably complain that he was only given it because he was black

[remigardeshair]

He tries, and fails, to come across as some sort of pseudo-intellectual.

I liked Sol, he really came of age in his first game back at the cess pit as an Arsenal player, he'd had a fairly dodgy start up to then, but he really grew after that match, remembering him clattering Sheringham after about 20 minutes and he was brilliant from then on in (half time disappearances notwithstanding)

For me TA was a better player though.

[arseofacrow]

Great defender but definitely a bit cuckoo.

Yep, I thought the exact same thing when I saw 1989's post! Better than Adams?

I don't see how that is a funny statement. Sol was a physical specimen of man, unbelievable defender, almost unbeatable at his peak (2002-2004). Not the leader TA6 was, but had more defensive ability in my humble opinion. Our best CB through the glory years, best CB in the country the year we won the league unbeaten. Also a point that doesn't get stated enough for me is how brilliant he was for England in all the big tournaments. Always turned up for them while the other England players bottled it. Had Barca not scored in the CL final, imagine how much more of a legend he would have been. Fantastic player.

But they did. I blame the defence

[arseofacrow]

Great defender but definitely a bit cuckoo.

Yep, I thought the exact same thing when I saw 1989's post! Better than Adams?

I don't see how that is a funny statement. Sol was a physical specimen of man, unbelievable defender, almost unbeatable at his peak (2002-2004). Not the leader TA6 was, but had more defensive ability in my humble opinion. Our best CB through the glory years, best CB in the country the year we won the league unbeaten. Also a point that doesn't get stated enough for me is how brilliant he was for England in all the big tournaments. Always turned up for them while the other England players bottled it. Had Barca not scored in the CL final, imagine how much more of a legend he would have been. Fantastic player.

But they did. I blame the defence

If only if only hadn't already been invented, Arsenal would've trademarked it.