Joel Campbell has claimed that he deserved to play more at Arsenal and you’d be hard pushed to find any fans who disagree with you.

When Campbell first moved to Arsenal after his initial loans, he struggled to show what he had in his locker. But, given time, he started to make a real impact and was not only working hard for the whole team but was also proving incisive, insightful and effective.

It seemed, however, no matter what he did, Arsene Wenger would not trust him and this season, once again, he was shipped out on loan despite Arsenal needing striking reinforcements.

“I feel good, happy, is a new experience [at Sporting],” Joel told Abola.

“As I did last year, [I] deserved to play more, but now I have a new step ahead.”

The 24-year-old has shown remarkable patience during his time at the club, always doing what was asked of him and never moaning about it. In fact, when many players would have been whinging to the media about not getting a fair crack, Joel kept reiterating how happy and grateful he was for Arsenal taking a chance on him.

Last season, Joel was given 883 minutes in the Premier League, an average of 46 minutes across his 19 appearances. Despite only being handed intermittent appearances (and five starts), he still scored three and assisted three for a goal involvement rate of one every 55 minutes. To contrast, Theo Walcott got 1373 league minutes, returning five goals and three assists – that’s a goal involvement rate of one every 171 minutes.

Yeah, I don’t understand it either.