Sol:"I don't think people at Spurs realised how big I was going to become."

[longtimespur]

If what Sol had said is true (that he wont be the best paid player, or a certain wage that met his expectation) then it's understandable that he left us.

Yes it's understandable he left us to better himself BUT sorry I disagree with you.

First "if what Sol has said is true" unlikely
Second . He'd already lied to the club and supporters regarding renewing his contract.
Third. He cost the club a transfer fee by letting his contract run down.
Fourth and worst. He then went to our arch rivals fully aware of what that meant to us fans.

Despicable is the only word I have for him.

 

[Metalhead]

Not this tedious bloke again. Every time he chimes up now I just shake my head and think 'what he's on about now.'

Bugger off, Sol, it's boring.

He's generated a large thread on here about it though.

 

[ultimateloner]

Yes it's understandable he left us to better himself BUT sorry I disagree with you.

First "if what Sol has said is true" unlikely
Second . He'd already lied to the club and supporters regarding renewing his contract.
Third. He cost the club a transfer fee by letting his contract run down.
Fourth and worst. He then went to our arch rivals fully aware of what that meant to us fans.

Despicable is the only word I have for him.

Second point is bad.
3rd point: you don't know what the club offered him previously; if it's not a good enough number he wont sign. its a 2-way thing. the club could have sold him? Surely we aren't dumb enough to let him run down. So chances are we tried to bargain and left ourselves not enough time to buy a replacement. So in the end its our greed as well.
4th point: disagree. He cant be expected to make his career choices based on what the fans think.

 

[MattyP]

Second point is bad.
3rd point: you don't know what the club offered him previously; if it's not a good enough number he wont sign. its a 2-way thing. the club could have sold him? Surely we aren't dumb enough to let him run down. So chances are we tried to bargain and left ourselves not enough time to buy a replacement. So in the end its our greed as well.
4th point: disagree. He cant be expected to make his career choices based on what the fans think.

Okay, forget what players earn now, here's a link to a reputable newspaper back when judas was about to leave

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...purs-reject-Campbells-ridiculous-demands.html

I don't think us refusing to pay him £7m a year was trying to bargain.

 

[MattyP]

Oh and just for good measure, here's what he said at the end of May 2001

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...pbell-looks-to-the-future-with-Tottenham.html

 

[ultimateloner]

Okay, forget what players earn now, here's a link to a reputable newspaper back when judas was about to leave

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...purs-reject-Campbells-ridiculous-demands.html

I don't think us refusing to pay him £7m a year was trying to bargain.

7m a year is about 135k/week; some players earn that in PL now. However your point is noted that this is big money and not something we are likely to offer.

However what I don't understand is how we could let him drag on; 2 years before we should have either sold or got him to sign a contract extension. I don't understand aside from trying to drive a bargain, how we could have missed out. I simply don't believe we as a club would believe promises a player makes, so something has got to motivated us into letting the situation go out of hand.

 

[worcestersauce]

7m a year is about 135k/week; some players earn that in PL now. However your point is noted that this is big money and not something we are likely to offer.

However what I don't understand is how we could let him drag on; 2 years before we should have either sold or got him to sign a contract extension. I don't understand aside from trying to drive a bargain, how we could have missed out. I simply don't believe we as a club would believe promises a player makes, so something has got to motivated us into letting the situation go out of hand.

Naivety, we did believe him just as arsene Wenger believed him when he lied to him, you are right though we wouldn't allow it to happen now but that is experience and comes from his situation.
The simple fact is that our club were missing one piece of information, Sol Campbell was running his contract down intentionally in the full knowledge that he had an offer from the Arsenal and if he went out of contract they could give him more money.

 

[ultimateloner]

Naivety, we did believe him just as arsene Wenger believed him when he lied to him, you are right though we wouldn't allow it to happen now but that is experience and comes from his situation.
The simple fact is that our club were missing one piece of information, Sol Campbell was running his contract down intentionally in the full knowledge that he had an offer from the Arsenal and if he went out of contract they could give him more money.

I have little doubt that Sol would do this; it makes sense for him.

I am appallaed of the naviety you speak of. For me that's just unprofessional and commercial suicide.

For me it could have made sense if we were holding onto our 'small' offer and were hoping that nobody out there would latch onto the 7m Sol demanded.

Anyway your explaination is straightforward and makes sense.

 

[jurgen]

Fair enough. I knew this but thought I'd missed something the way people were reacting.

I don't think anyone outside of Spurs would feel like he made the wrong decision in any of this. And while I was disappointed that he left and how he left, I think the club is more to blame and the player had to look out for his own short career. If anything, it's a little more honest to not sign a contract when you intend to leave, rather than sign one and have htis wink-wink relationship with the club regarding an impending sale.

He lined up a massive contract from himself with a side he went on to win titles with and go unbeaten with for a whole season. It's terrible for us, but it just highlights the disparity that existed (which has thankfully closed a bit). I'm sure Anderton and King appreciate the affection of Spurs fans, which is well deserved because they deserved better from the club. I'm also sure Campbell can brush this off while enjoying other fans' appreciation of him while he looks at his medals and footage of the quality football they played at the time.

But he simply cannot do this! Hence all the crap he spouts in the press. You're defeating your own argument because Campbell clearly and demonstrably is not happy just with his medals, or the football he played at the scum, or fan's appreciation - because he still feels he has never had enough recognition as he keeps reminding us!

Moreover, his dissatisfaction with this supposed lack of recognition is always, always, framed as someone else's issue - and not that he is the prototypical narcissistic, disloyal money grabbing footballer that provided a template for the likes of Ashley Cole etc. and has driven football away from the supporters.

 

[whitesocks]

Naivety, we did believe him just as arsene Wenger believed him when he lied to him, you are right though we wouldn't allow it to happen now but that is experience and comes from his situation.

The simple fact is that our club were missing one piece of information, Sol Campbell was running his contract down intentionally in the full knowledge that he had an offer from the Arsenal and if he went out of contract they could give him more money.

I think the club knew exactly where he wanted to go, but the fans would have gone berzerk, if Graham/Sugar had sold our captain to arsenal. They were not a popular pair as it was.

It was a no win situation. Even if Campbell had agreed to going abroad first, or we had tried to sell him directly to the club of his dreams, would Wenger have splashed out £25m?
Campbell is not his type of player at all, but if he turns up on your doorstep for free, then you can hardly turn your nose up....

And exactly the same could happen today - if Vertonghen for example says sell me to arsenal or I run my contract down, then as far as I'm concerned he can run it down and take the consequences. The day we become a feeder club to that lot is the day I join the Levy out brigade.

 

[lenny7]

I think he's bang on the money. Up until 2001, none of us could have foreseen what a colossal wanker he'd ultimately become.

 

[Norwegian Spurs fan]

I agree with Sol on this I didnt know how big a judas c... he was going to become. As fans we thought it was love, but in the end it was only greed.

 

[Mullers]

I think the club knew exactly where he wanted to go, but the fans would have gone berzerk, if Graham/Sugar had sold our captain to arsenal. They were not a popular pair as it was.

It was a no win situation. Even if Campbell had agreed to going abroad first, or we had tried to sell him directly to the club of his dreams, would Wenger have splashed out £25m?
Campbell is not his type of player at all, but if he turns up on your doorstep for free, then you can hardly turn your nose up....

And exactly the same could happen today - if Vertonghen for example says sell me to arsenal or I run my contract down, then as far as I'm concerned he can run it down and take the consequences. The day we become a feeder club to that lot is the day I join the Levy out brigade.

If Vertonghen went to Arsenal I wouldn´t really care that much, I don´t really rate him highly.

 

[Geyzer Soze]

He's generated a large thread on here about it though.

So's A&C's poo

 

[Metalhead]

So's A&C's poo

Nice.

 

[TheBlueRooster]

The title of this thread could also be attributed to Andy Reid.

 

[worcestersauce]

I think the club knew exactly where he wanted to go, but the fans would have gone berzerk, if Graham/Sugar had sold our captain to arsenal. They were not a popular pair as it was.

It was a no win situation. Even if Campbell had agreed to going abroad first, or we had tried to sell him directly to the club of his dreams, would Wenger have splashed out £25m?
Campbell is not his type of player at all, but if he turns up on your doorstep for free, then you can hardly turn your nose up....

And exactly the same could happen today - if Vertonghen for example says sell me to arsenal or I run my contract down, then as far as I'm concerned he can run it down and take the consequences. The day we become a feeder club to that lot is the day I join the Levy out brigade.

Which is why we keep renewing contracts with two to three years left on existing ones plus we add on an extra years extension option, Jan can try to run down his contract but we'd make it very difficult for him if we thought he was doing a Campbell on us.
Effectively nowadays its sign or fuck off now and if he went to Arsenal then fine as long as we get our price(all of this is hypothetical of course as he wouldn't be going there)

 

[panties]

The bit that annoyed me most in that interview was his bullshit about being all "You won't be taking the captaincy away from me whilst I'm here". Billy big bollocks...stfu you arrogant ****, you will do as you are told.

Fucker

 

[ultimateloner]

I think the club knew exactly where he wanted to go, but the fans would have gone berzerk, if Graham/Sugar had sold our captain to arsenal. They were not a popular pair as it was.

It was a no win situation. Even if Campbell had agreed to going abroad first, or we had tried to sell him directly to the club of his dreams, would Wenger have splashed out £25m?
Campbell is not his type of player at all, but if he turns up on your doorstep for free, then you can hardly turn your nose up....

And exactly the same could happen today - if Vertonghen for example says sell me to arsenal or I run my contract down, then as far as I'm concerned he can run it down and take the consequences. The day we become a feeder club to that lot is the day I join the Levy out brigade.

You sell to the highest bidder: whether it is arsenal is irrelevant. You don't want to lose money just to appease fans.
Our failure was not even getting a price for him.

 

[scat1620]

You sell to the highest bidder: whether it is arsenal is irrelevant. You don't want to lose money just to appease fans.
Our failure was not even getting a price for him.

If his intention was always to run his contract down and leave on a free transfer then we didn't really have a say in the matter and therefore you can't say that we failed as a club. You can't force a player to leave even if you want them to if they have a contract. And that's all on the assumption that he'd told the club of his intentions in the first place: all the articles including direct quotes that MattyP has posted indicate that Campbell's words in public didn't tally with his actions in private - if so (and Sol was stringing us on by telling us that he'd stay) then the club is even less to blame for not having sold him sooner.

In short, he was a ****, and for all the other mistakes that THFC have made, his leaving Spurs doesn't seem to have been one of them.