Sol Campbell happy with life at Newcastle.

Sol Campbell has had a fantastic career at both club and international level, but at the ripe old age of 36 you would have to think that his career is drawing to a close.

Injuries have hampered the effect that Campbell could have had on the first team as he has spent a fair proportion of his time at Newcastle on the sidelines. I’m not saying that Campbell would have been starting, but I feel pretty sure that we’d have seen some more little ten minute cameo appearances, much like what happened at Birmingham, to try to shore things up at the back a little with his experience.

Campbell will be out of contract in the summer, unless Alan Pardew decides to take up the option to extend the deal for another year of course. I think that perhaps the time has come for Campbell to hang up his boots and take on a coaching role, but that is just my opinion and some may not agree with it.

Anyway, despite his lack of opportunity Campbell still claims that he has enjoyed his time at Newcastle.

“I’ve enjoyed it here,” Campbell told the Northern Echo. “It’s been eventful and there have been ups and downs, but it’s been good. I’m old enough to know you just have to get on with it as a player, and that is what we have done.”

Sol, Sol, Sol. This season has not been eventful. We may have lost a manager and lost our star player, but that is pretty quiet when it comes to life on Tyneside 😉

Campbell continued:

“At the moment, I’m fit. I’ve been okay for a couple of weeks and I’m happy to help out wherever and whenever I can. I’ll play when I can and will support the team in everything they do.”

With Fabricio Coloccini, Mike Williamson and Steven Taylor in front of him in the hunt for a starting spot, it’s unlikely that Campbell will see much action, and when he does it is likely to be from the bench. Still, his experience is a good thing to have around the place, which is why I would like to see him take up a coaching role when he eventually hangs up his boots.

Campbell believes that Newcastle have had a good season, and with the team suitably placed to push on in the final couple of months of the season you would probably find it hard to disagree with that. In fact Campbell believes it could have been even better had certain results gone our way.

“We’re eight points clear of the bottom three and, if you look at what we were trying to do when I signed, it’s been a good season,” said Campbell. “The boys have played really well and we could have had even more points than we’ve got.”

“There have been a few games where we haven’t got what we deserved, where things have not quite gone for us, so it was important we got a win at Birmingham and that sets us up nicely for the rest of the season.”

“There is a confidence in the camp which shines through. We’ve moved another step away from the mess below us that we don’t want to get involved in. We don’t want to be dragged into it and we’ve given ourselves some breathing space. The sooner we make it mathematically impossible for us to get into any of that the better and that is what we are trying to do.”

These are good words from Campbell. With his tendency to hissy fit I wasn’t sure what to expect from him to be honest, but then again I guess it’s hard to judge just how much of an impact he has had as we generally don’t get to see behind the scenes. For all we know he could be an integral part of the team? He could be acting like a coach as we speak? Who knows?

I’m just glad that he seems to be happy. You’ve heard about one bad apple spoiling the barrel surely? Well I don’t want one unhappy player running the risk of making others unhappy, so from that perspective, Campbell’s words are a big plus.