Campbell shocker adds to Gunners' crisis

Arsene Wenger is facing up to a defensive crisis after Arsenal’s latest Barclays Premiership defeat, as veteran defender Sol Campbell suffered one of his worst performances.

Campbell was substituted at half-time against West Ham and chose to head off home with his tail between his legs rather than watch the rest of the game.

England centre-back Campbell, 31, was at fault for the opening goal as his mistake allowed Hammers skipper Nigel Reo-Coker to dash through and put the visitors into the lead on 25 minutes.

Things got worse when the defender’s slip allowed Bobby Zamora space to turn in the area, the former Tottenham striker sending a looping shot over Jens Lehmann.

Although Thierry Henry pulled a goal back – his 151st league strike, bettering Cliff Bastin’s record – before half-time, there was to be no comeback for the hosts, who missed the chance to move within a point of fourth-placed Spurs.

Matthew Etherington’s strike with nine minutes left proved decisive, even though Robert Pires’ late effort again threatened to set up a grandstand finish.

Wenger revealed Campbell had taken the decision to leave the stadium himself, the veteran Arsenal defender replaced by Sebastian Larsson, who made his Premiership debut.

“You always want your players to stay, but there are exceptional circumstances where you can understand what he did,” said the Arsenal manager, who also had to substitute young Kerrea Gilbert during the first half because of the defender’s back injury.

“I knew it would be better for him personally, I felt. He did not do it meaning disrespect to the club or to the team, but I feel he’s very, very down and that’s the only issue. His confidence is not at the highest at the moment.”

Wenger added: “He was very down at half-time and he felt guilty. I took him off because he was in a mental shape, I felt, too much down to come back.”

Wenger added: “At the moment we are of course short because we lost Lauren for the rest of the season and Ashley Cole is not back, Kolo [Toure] and [Emmanuel] Eboue are away, Sol is not well.

“We are short at the back and we have to stick together and defend a little bit more everywhere else on the pitch and go through that patch.”

Arsenal had actually started the match in promising fashion, with Henry seeing a goal-bound effort strike team-mate Freddie Ljungberg.

Wenger said: “Overall, commitment was right, the quality of our game was right and we succumbed to, basically, mistakes that can of course happen in football.”

For Alan Pardew it was another night to be proud, his side being the first West Ham team to win at Highbury in the league since 1995.

“To win at a blue-riband club like this is fantastic for us and we have to take some stuff from it,” the Hammers boss said.

“You can see that we always look like we can score goals and I think, at any level of football, that gives you an advantage.”

However, Pardew urged caution, despite his side having climbed up to ninth in the table, a fine effort after coming up through the play-offs last season.

“This young team hasn’t won at one of these top clubs yet, so we got a little bit deep in the midfield and we were exposing ourselves to pressure,” he said.

“So we need to learn that we can win at big clubs now, so perhaps next time we won’t do that.”