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Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain came to Liverpool because he wanted a change of position.
“I wouldn’t say I wanted to leave Arsenal because I didn’t think we could win.” he said to Ian Wright at the beginning of this year. “I just didn’t think I was going to be able to play where I wanted to play, and that was it.”
In the previous season, Oxlade-Chamberlain had made 29 Premier League appearances. Only five reached midfield, the position he himself described as the best. At the end of the season, Arsene Wenger switched to a three back based form with rear wings. Oxlade-Chamberlain was used on the right or left wing.
Wenger used 3-4-3 for the last ten games of the season, eight in the league and twice in the FA Cup, for the semifinal and final. Arsenal won nine of those ten games, showing a strong recovery after a horrible season that brought Wenger to the brink.
Oxlade-Chamberlain started six of those ten games. All of them reached right back in the FA Cup final against Chelsea when they switched to left back. Not once did he play in midfield.
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This rear wing theme persisted in the first three games of the 2017/18 season before his £ 35 million move to Liverpool. Oxlade-Chamberlain had had enough.
“I feel like a lot of my best performances for Arsenal came in midfield, but I never played consistently in that position,” he continued to Wright. “I changed the first game of that season with Héctor [Bellerin]. First game I played on the left [wing-back]He played to the right and we changed the second game.
“I thought,” I have to take a risk, I have to take a risk. I don’t want to look back at the end and think I didn’t try. “
Throughout this difficult period, it became clear that Oxlade-Chamberlain was best suited for a central role in midfield. Wenger himself believed that he would become a central midfielder, not a winger, since the Arsenal manager had used him almost exclusively.
“He is still in formation right now,” Wenger said. the official website of Arsenal in January 2014, when Oxlade-Chamberlain was only 20 years old. “It is good for his education, since he plays left, right and center when necessary. Then [the age of] 23 or 24 you settle in a defined position.
“It will be deeper since it has a good long ball, penetration from the depths and a good quality to distribute and penetrate individually. It certainly has the same qualities as Steven Gerrard. “
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Oxlade-Chamberlain had flourished in a central position midfield for England the previous summer. Roy Hodgson introduced him in the second half of a 2-2 draw with Brazil. It completely changed the midfield dynamic, scoring from a Wayne Rooney takedown with a scraped finish from the edge of the penalty area.
Wenger revealed that this would be the future for Oxlade-Chamberlain: “He had a huge impact when he entered that game against Brazil, especially in center-center and deep-center center. His future will be there.”
When Liverpool finally signed Oxlade-Chamberlain in 2017, Jurgen Klopp was not attracted to the position he would play, such was the dismay over the debate before his arrival in Merseyside. But he was clearly an admirer of the then 24-year-old’s overall skill.
“I hear a lot of talk about positions, but let’s talk about the player” Klopp told the official Liverpool website with the Oxlade-Chamberlain signature. “He is someone with really good skills who always gives everything for his team. A player who is positive and willing to take risks to try to make positive things happen. “
It was this dynamic ball progress ability that excited Klopp. Oxlade-Chamberlain had played a lot as a winger for Arsenal and was a clinician in one-on-one situations. It had an excellent combination of explosive acceleration, deceptive force to hold back defenders, and a charming and subtle touch and control to manipulate the ball even in tight spaces. Although inconsistent at times, it was a nightmare to contain.
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Where he had problems at Arsenal was in the goals and assistance department. He had just two goals and seven assists in his last full Premier League season in the Emirates, despite playing primarily as winger or winger. But in Liverpool’s most conservative central midfield setup, where supplying and breaking lines is more important than creating or scoring goals, this was not a big problem.
Oxlade-Chamberlain’s role in Liverpool accentuated her skill set beautifully. He could fall deeply and take the ball from the defense, spinning, and with very few defenders capable of pressing it, knowing that he had the ability and speed to turn and overtake, he could inspect the field and choose a pass, of which he had a range charming.
He was never especially known for his passing at Arsenal, but once he moved to a central role in midfield for brief appearances, the precision and variety of his distribution came to light. After a 2-0 victory over Hull City in February 2017, in which Oxlade-Chamberlain produced a masterful display in midfield, football.london wrote that he could “show off his fantastic passing range” and that “he could have solved Arsenal’s midfield problem.”
Oxlade-Chamberlain made just three more midfield appearances for Arsenal after Hull City’s victory, two of which were against Sutton United and Lincoln City in the FA Cup. But the qualities he demonstrated to Klopp and Liverpool never disappeared. They just needed to be unearthed.
While injuries have lessened their overall impact on Liverpool, Oxlade-Chamberlain has shown the same midfield game-breaking dynamism that Klopp adored when he first arrived. He has an additional team that no other Liverpool midfielder owns, he has a rare ability to beat a defender by dropping his shoulder and going past or simply going through it with a line division pass, and he increasingly recognizes when he can drive forward. with the ball directly, twisted and dangerous and when to simply recycle possession and wait for a more opportune moment.
But the combination of his first pass, his passing range and controlled dribbling make him perfect for Klopp’s midfield. As Wenger pointed out in 2014, those qualities were already there at Arsenal. They just needed to be untied. It was necessary to move to Liverpool and Klopp to do just that.
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