Joel Campbell says that although Arsene Wenger wanted him to stay at the club, he asked to leave because he felt he wasn’t going to play as much as he would like.

This is the Costa Rican’s 5th loan club since signing for Arsenal in 2011, after spells at Lorient, Real Betis, Olympiacos and Villarreal. The 24 year old had a good season last time out, but never seemed to fully convince his manager, and he seems aware of that by requesting to leave on loan.

“I made that decision because I’m at an important stage in my football life, an ideal age to grow,” he told Nacion.com.

“When I realized I was not going to play as much as I wanted I thought it would be better to go on loan. In reality going on loan has always been on my request.

“I have ambition, I want to play, and I love football. Truth is I don’t feel comfortable not playing every Sunday. I don’t want to settle for less.

“Another person could stay at Arsenal, have a good wage, live in a nice city and not playing, but I prefer to leave comfort aside and fight for my dreams. I want to prove I have what is needed to play the game.”

And he revealed that Wenger wanted to keep him but his desire to play more often trumped that, leaving the Frenchman to acquiesce.

“The coach told me he would have liked me to stay,” he said, “but playing is my priority and if I’m not 100% on his plans then I prefer to go on loan and play football.

“I’ll do my best effort to achieve good stats and grow during this season at Sporting.”

Again, good luck to him out there.

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Translation hat-tip to ymic on /r/gunners