Sol Man's Gotta Fight

Sol Campbell is not exactly accustomed to fighting for his place. Not with England and, least of all, with Arsenal.
However, the experienced centre-back approaches the new season with Philippe Senderos and John Terry having posed a dual threat to his place for club and country respectively.
It is a challenge which Campbell is determined to meet head-on. This, after all, is a player who did not exactly choose the easy option in moving from Tottenham to Arsenal four years ago.
Since then, he has effectively been considered as an automatic starter for both England and Arsenal, through the 2002 World Cup, Euro 2004 finals and two title campaigns.
Or at least that was the case until last season, when Campbell's career suddenly became dogged by persistent injuries and cursed by bad luck. At the age of 30, he started to show signs of wear and tear.
There were several low points, including the moment he suffered a recurrence of his ankle problems during the home defeat by Manchester United in February, ruling himself out for almost three months.
However, the lowest of them all came on the eve of the FA Cup final when Campbell was told by Arsene Wenger that not even his return for the previous two games had been enough to force his way past Kolo Toure and Senderos into the side.
So while an England international with 64 caps sat on the bench, a 20-year-old Swiss defender in his first full season in the Premiership and a 24-year-old Ivory Coast former utility player started the game in his place.
It led, so Campbell has admitted, to "a few words" with Wenger as he made his frustration clear after a season in which he played a total of just 21 times for Arsenal.
However, his woes had not stopped there as, having being selected by Eriksson for the United States post-season mini-tour in the absence of Ferdinand and Terry, he was promptly injured in the first game.
Rather than feeling sorry for himself though, Campbell is now determined to regain his place - beginning in the Community Shield clash against Chelsea back in Cardiff and ending at the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany.
"We're a team, we win together and lose together, but it did hurt. Of course I was frustrated but you have to put those things behind you and look to the future - and that's what I've done," he recently told Nuts magazine.
"It was a new experience for me but now there is a lot to come next season. Thank God I had the injury last season and not next season! At least I've got time to win back my England place."
Terry and Ferdinand could nevertheless pose a serious threat to that ambition, while Jamie Carragher and Ledley King have also impressed Eriksson.
Moreover, Campbell needs to be playing regularly at club level to feature for England and, despite some initial uncertainty, Toure and Senderos formed a formidable partnership in his absence in the final few months of last season.
Indeed, it was incredible just how little Campbell was actually missed by Arsenal, with Senderos emerging as a genuinely talented young prospect.
However, Wenger insisted in the aftermath of the cup final Campbell could expect to return to the side at the start of the new season - fitness and form permitting.
What the England defender really needs now is a good pre-season work-out, having never fully recovered from injury problems sustained in Portugal last summer before the start of the last campaign.
But he has not lost any self-belief and believes the experience of coping with his traumatic move across North London in 2001 will at least stand him in good stead for the coming season.
"I don't think any player could have gone through what I went through to get through in that first year here. I don't think people give me the respect as a lot of people would have cracked," he recalled.
"Every Tom, Dick and Harry had something to say about it, everyone had a field day, but it made strong. It made me realise what's special in life, what's real in life and that's why I just kept to football.
"It was a valuable experience getting through it. It was hard but now I'm past it and in years to come, I'm going to face new tasks and new challenges and, if I can get through that, I can get through pretty much anything."