Joel Campbell’s performance against Arouca from last Sunday keeps being much praised by the Portuguese media. After analysing the result yesterday, the newspapers are now giving credit to the best players, and the Arsenal loanee is one of them.
First there’s O Jogo talking about his positioning. Campbell played on the left wing, sometimes moving inside to stay behind Bas Dost, the team’s main striker.
This was the first time Campbell played alongside his compatriot and former Fulham midfielder Bryan Ruiz.
The duo could understand each other very well, and given the 24-year-old’s goal and assist, the newspaper considers that the manager Jorge Jesus has found the Arsenal owned player his best role.
There’s also A Bola claiming that Jesus and the Costa Rica manager keep in touch constantly so they can both try to take the best from the Arsenal player.
It’s not the first time that’s been reported, and it all appears to be helping Campbell.
Most of Campbell’s improvement would be in his work rate, as chasing back after opponents was something he was not doing in his first months at Sporting.
His defensive work on Sunday was something different than what was seen before, and that’s why the Arsenal loanee is now finally closer to having a sequence of starts for Sporting.
No doubt Arsene Wenger will be keeping an eye on Campbell’s work at Sporting, with the Costa Rocan having an Arsenal contract until June 2018.