Monday, June 5 2006 15:42 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Manchester: Sol Campbell is resigned to starting England's World Cup campaign on the bench but insists he is more than happy to fill a supporting role in Sven Goran Eriksson's squad.

The Arsenal centre-back, 31, has been the cornerstone of his country's back-four for a decade and was an automatic first choice during the two previous tournaments in France and the Far East.

But after enduring the most challenging six months of his career, Campbell is simply relieved to have recovered from a self-imposed mid-season lay-off and made his way into Eriksson's final 23-man squad.

Frustrated by a series of niggling injuries and inexplicable loss of form, the defender withdrew himself at half-time during Arsenal's Premiership clash with West Ham United in early February and spent the next two months rebuilding his game.

Now, having returned to Arsene Wenger's first team towards the end of the season - and in time to score in the Champions League final defeat to Barcelona Campbell is back in international favour and became the first England player to have been selected for five successive major tournaments.

And while John Terry and Rio Ferdinand may have secured the first choice centre-back berths, Campbell claims he is adjusting to his unfamiliar role with enthusiasm.

"I'm just happy to be here playing and training and just want to be part of the squad and whenever a chance to play comes along I'm going to take it," he said.

"It's not easy to come on as a substitute but as the tournament goes on you get suspensions, injuries, loss of form or whatever and you need players who are ready to step up and hopefully help keep the campaign going," he said.

As a veteran of so many previous campaigns, Campbell is too experienced to get carried away with the enthusiasm that greeted England's 6-0 rout of Jamaica in their final send-off.

But the defender is convinced England have greater strength in depth going into their Group B opener against Paraguay on June 10.

And Peter Crouch and Michael Owen providing evidence of an effective strike-force in the absence of Wayne Rooney, Campbell is optimistic about his side's hopes.

"We are not going to carried away and we can't go away thinking all games will be like the Jamaica game," he added.

"We have simply to prepare properly and go out to win our games and if we can win comfortably then that's fantastic," he said.

"But it was great boost to get so many goals. We want to get it together and it is coming together. You do need a rub of the green and we are getting there," he said.

"We have scored goals from set-pieces but we have also scored a few from open play so we have got all angles covered," he said.

"But we have got realise that there will be more occasions when we have to really set our stall out and if that means we win 1-0, then so be it," he said.