’Sol was 100% more leader than Henry. Why there is no statue of him outside the stadium?’

If you look at Arsenal’s history, five players deserved statues outside the Emirates stadium: Tony Adams, Dennis Bergkamp, Herbert Chapman, Ken Friar and Thierry Henry. But if you ask former players or Gunners fans, they will give you at least five more names that deserve the statue. One of those is Theo Walcott. Former Arsenal forward played for the North London club for 12 year, racking up 270 appearances, along with 65 goals, and his idol is obviously Thierry Henry.

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But, Walcott rates another Arsenal right up there with Henry – Sol Campbell. The steady defender spent 12 years of his youth and senior career with Tottenham, before making the capital ’sin’ and switching over to Arsenal as a free agent in 2001 He went on to make 197 appearances for Arsenal over five seasons and delivered two Premier League titles, two FA Cups and scored in a Champions League final. Henry and Bergkamp were also part of the 2003/04 unbeaten title-winning campaign and Walcott was asked where Campbell ranks in the list of Arsenal legends.

“It’s hard to compare Sol to people like Thierry. Lots of people look at strikers, they always do. But Sol, for me… the fact he’s gone from Tottenham and the amount of stick he got moving to Arsenal and then wins everything and scores in the Champions League final. He would rank just below Thierry, because of Thierry being my idol and what he did for me. Sol was 100 per cent more of a leader than Thierry. I’m quite surprised that Sol hasn’t got a statue as well, because that’s the kind of impression he brought to Arsenal“ Walcott said in a special new talkSPORT „Being Sol Campbell“.

Another overlook for Campbell was the captaincy of the England national team. Gunners defender made 73 performances from 1996 until 2007 and was named captain only three times, as Alan Shearer and David Beckham were regular captains during that period. And Walcott finds that strange too.

“73 caps and to captain your national team three times is embarrassing. I don’t get it. Whoever is captain, yep in their own right may be good. For me, there was no better leader than Sol because he left everything on the field. Every time we came out of a game his whole kit was drenched and mud everywhere, his face had blood on it. That’s how much it meant to him, to only captain England three times, for me, is really frustrating and really hurts. He should have captained many more occasions” said Walcott.

The Gunners gave the answer to that question in his autobiography, stating that he would have been captain of England ‘for more than 10 years’ had he been white. And he still stands by his claims, as he talked about captaincy in a special talkSPORT documentary.

“I definitely would have captained England a lot more. When you become one of the best defenders in the world, captained your side, and you go from being captain to vice captain to no captain and you’ve become one of the best defenders in the world. For me, I would have definitely captained more than three times. All I know, with what I did as a footballer, I was one of the best in the world, not just in England, for at least two or three years. I went from being potentially full-time captain to vice-captain to no captain and nobody explained it“ Campbell said.