Boss defends Campbell

Last updated : 27 February 2002 By Austin Rathe
Sorry, Kev, only kidding, but it has been a while. Smith Said : "It's been unfair to criticise Kevin if you look at the circumstances, and they are not excuses, these are valid reasons. He was out for 12 weeks, and when he came back he was the only fit striker that we had, so we had to push him in there, and we didn't really have anyone to help share the load with him up front and he came straight back into the team.

"There were no reserve games, no build-up in terms of fitness, so it's going to take him a period of time to get back in. Now we have Tomasz Radzinski it will help him, but he's getting stronger with each game he plays, and hopefully we will see him start to come back to full form."

"We're glad to have a fair number of our players back from injury. It will be hard judging who will be fit for us because the players are short of match practice.

"If you can get your natural forward players playing for you then that can help a great deal."