of his five goals or any other skills, no podcast segments keeping tabs on his increasingly fraught relations
with club president Mehmet Ali Yilmaz.
Ighalo is already among the goals (Getty)Campbell felt he was still the player whose 10 goals helped Arsenal to a league title in 1991 and wanted to
show English football as much. And when running through the five offers he had on the table to return,
Everton caught his eye.
Again, there were no nerves. As he tells The Independent: “If you’ve played in a team like Arsenal and you’re
winning stuff, scoring goals and making a difference – I know I could go to Everton and do it.”
The Toffees's manager Walter Smith had sounded out Campbell earlier in the season. So as he waited for a
move to come to fruition, the striker watched a few of their games and was impressed with the football they
were trying to play, even if it was not as successful as intended. He also kept tabs with people he knew
around the club to best inform his decision.
Once the £3m deal was pushed through, Campbell went straight into the first XI. Though his first two
matches – two defeats – were scoreless, a break allowed him to catch up on his fitness with extra training
sessions while others refreshed.
“That was key for me,” says Campbell. “When you come in mid-season if you haven’t been playing,
everyone is at a different level to you. Those two games helped because there’s nothing better than playing
matches to get match fitness. But it showed me where I was lacking and I was able to correct it. It all
culminated in the game against Coventry.”
He scored both in a 2-0 win over Coventry at Goodison Park, those two starting a run of nine goals in five
games which bumped Everton up to finish 13th, 14 points clear of the drop zone.
There was a degree of short-termism to Campbell’s signing, which the club were fine with. Staying in the
division was paramount to their financial well-being and goals were all he was being judged on. But they
lucked out on the personality.