Cautious Sol Campbell won't dream of final

A first appearance at Emirates Stadium may have yielded a superb 5-0 win over Porto on Tuesday night, but Sol Campbell is not yet allowing himself to dream of returning to the Champions League final in his second spell at Arsenal.

GettyImages

Sol Campbell beats four Porto players to the ball in the Champions League

• Arsenal 5-0 Porto
• Denilson: Win gives Arsenal hope
• Harris on Nasri and Wenger

When Campbell joined Portsmouth in 2006 having scored in Arsenal's heartbreaking 2-1 defeat to Barcelona in Paris, few would have anticipated that four years later, and following a brief spell with League Two Notts County, the 35-year-old would once again be cutting a robust figure in the Champions League.

But following his surprise arrival as a free agent in January, Campbell has quickly proved an astute acquisition and on Tuesday night helped Arsene Wenger's side secure their place in the Champions League quarter-finals in what was his first game at Emirates Stadium as an Arsenal player.

The manner of the 5-0 victory - with Nicklas Bendtner claiming a hat-trick and Samir Nasri scoring a contender for goal of the season - has led some to speculate that Arsenal are real contenders for the competition, but Campbell is wary of predicting a return to the final and is instead keen to focus on what was a remarkable result in front of an appreciative home crowd.

When asked if he felt he had unfinished business in the Champions League after the disappointment of 2006, Campbell told Soccernet: "I think there is a lot of football to be played in between [now and the final], so we will go from there. It's the old saying, you have to take every game as it comes, but every time you play you have to put a good shift in and take it from there.

"It is great to be out there and playing with the lads and Arsenal. Especially at home. That was my first game at the Emirates so it is great to be involved really. I've had a good reception since the first game I have had really and it is great to be recognised and loved by the fans."

Arsenal had not overturned a first-leg deficit in European competition since knocking Hajduk Split out of the UEFA Cup in 1978 but any doubts over whether they would reach the quarter-finals quickly evaporated in the opening 25 minutes as Bendtner scored twice to give Arsenal an aggregate lead.

Porto appeared overwhelmed by a tempo indigenous to the Premier League, rather than European competition, as the mistakes of the first leg - in which Lukasz Fabianski and Campbell were both culpable - were quickly forgotten in a whirlwind of speedy, attacking football.

Campbell felt Porto were unprepared for such an onslaught from the home side, who saw Andrei Arshavin, Bendtner and Nasri torment the Portuguese champions' defence throughout the evening.

"The performance was great," Campbell said. "It was a great job, everyone played well and stuck to their jobs. The lads really responded as well to going 2-1 down at their place. We probably surprised them a little bit with the way we played and there were some great goals as well.

"Yes [it was important to respond to the mistakes of the first game]. They probably thought it was going to be a bit tighter but you have always got to start the game like that and think it is going to be tight and strong. Porto are a great side so we had to play well."