Topic: Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

[RedKenWah]

This is a classic case of before Roma and after Roma. Before the Roma game at Anfield, AOC was on an upward trajectory with us in CM and was virtually in line for representing his country and his career going to new heights. However since that horrific injury against them, he’s understandably never been the same player since; his dynamism has gone which was a key part of his play in midfield. In hindsight the club after Roma and him being back on his feet should have been shipped away rather than stuck with as he’s suffered injury after injury and has never gotten back to same dizzying heights.

I think though he should be remembered fondly, he was a bargain for £35m and at a time when Chelsea had agreed a fee for him but he had rejected them. He offered a lot for us, those goals against Man City, his pressing and dominating in midfield, he offered so much but again the injury has robbed him of more of a career at the club. The time should have been last year or so to find him a new club and make some money rather than retain him, sometimes clubs have to be ruthless which I think is part of a weakness for Jurgen Klopp.

[jepovic]

This is a classic case of before Roma and after Roma. Before the Roma game at Anfield, AOC was on an upward trajectory with us in CM and was virtually in line for representing his country and his career going to new heights. However since that horrific injury against them, he’s understandably never been the same player since; his dynamism has gone which was a key part of his play in midfield. In hindsight the club after Roma and him being back on his feet should have been shipped away rather than stuck with as he’s suffered injury after injury and has never gotten back to same dizzying heights.

I think though he should be remembered fondly, he was a bargain for £35m and at a time when Chelsea had agreed a fee for him but he had rejected them. He offered a lot for us, those goals against Man City, his pressing and dominating in midfield, he offered so much but again the injury has robbed him of more of a career at the club. The time should have been last year or so to find him a new club and make some money rather than retain him, sometimes clubs have to be ruthless which I think is part of a weakness for Jurgen Klopp.

You are rewriting history. Ox was never that good and never started more than half the games, competing with players like Can. And 35M was a lot of money back then, so he was certainly not a bargain.

[TepidT2O]

I just don’t get why he’s playing.

He pulled out of a tackle which is unforgivable.

Because Jota, Diaz and Nunez and Bobby are injured?

[MonsLibpool]

You are rewriting history. Ox was never that good and never started more than half the games, competing with players like Can. And 35M was a lot of money back then, so he was certainly not a bargain.

I remember Arsenal fans laughing at us after he started poorly but he really improved and became a key player after Coutinho left. Started many games in our record-breaking run in 19/20.

[SamLad]

I just don’t get why he’s playing.

He pulled out of a tackle which is unforgivable.

and came within a couple of inches from scoring a goal for us.

[harryc]

and came within a couple of inches from scoring a goal for us.

Oh yeah the attempt where he completely misjudged the flight of the ball so ended up heading the ball from knee height 😂

[SamLad]

Oh yeah the attempt where he completely misjudged the flight of the ball so ended up heading the ball from knee height 😂

you mean the one where he threw himself at a ball that was JUST too far away and missed it by a fraction?

amazing how ppl interpret / see things differently.

[Clint Eastwood]

You are rewriting history. Ox was never that good and never started more than half the games, competing with players like Can. And 35M was a lot of money back then, so he was certainly not a bargain.

He’s not really. Ox was excellent on the right side of CM in the run up to his injury.

[ToneLa]

Overall he's about
***1/2

[6BigCups]

He has done well in maybe 10-20% of the games he has played for us, including pre Roma for which he flattered to deceive for most of the time. Should have been sold years ago.

[rushyman]

Championship level player

Unfortunate. Roma semi was a sliding doors moment for him here

[Marcel]

He has done well in maybe 10-20% of the games he has played for us, including pre Roma for which he flattered to deceive for most of the time. Should have been sold years ago.

Talk about rewriting history. Ah well

[lgvkarlos]

He’s not really. Ox was excellent on the right side of CM in the run up to his injury.

Agree, people have very short memories.

Has offered little since that injury though and annoys me when he gets game time over a youngster.

[StL-Dono]

Agree, people have very short memories.

Has offered little since that injury though and annoys me when he gets game time over a youngster.

Disagree and agree with this here.

Despite his injuries, he's been good a lot of the time and has scored some good goals along the way. 
But, this season I feel is best used to working in the youngsters and getting them more and more experience.  Ox is not part of the future and I wish JK would begin now to ease out playing time for those who won't be here next year and increase it for those that will.

[SamLad]

I get the comments about using the young players, but for me it's a catch 22, and Klopp doesn't want to put Carv (only other LW option right now) in a position where they'd get shat on (like Harvey has been over and over again) if they don't produce.  could kill their confidence long-term.

and right now, it's very likely they would get shat on coz of our overall form.

[67CherryRed]

Agree, people have very short memories.

Has offered little since that injury though and annoys me when he gets game time over a youngster.

Short memories? His hot streak prior to the injury was in 2018, almost 5 years ago. To put it in to context Ben Doak was in year 8.

5 years is a lifetime in football.

[Shankly!Shankly!]

We all know what's happened to ox and all expect him to leave, most probably happy that the space in the squad is free. But how has he become 1st choice?!? I'd much rather carvalho or even tsimikas. Or even Harvey or doak. Don't mind ox getting minutes but starting each week is just confusing. Pep is also doing some funky things with his line ups, this season is baffling
 

[Always_A_Red]

The biggest mystery is how he was ever given a contract extension after his injury against Roma?!

He signed in 2017 on a 5 year deal.

He gets a horrific injury against Roma in April 2018 and is out of action for a year, returning in April 2019. From April until the summer, he picked up 2 further injuries that means he only plays 2 games in the 2018/19 season. He's still at this point got 3 years left on his contract.

In the summer of 2019, despite him not really playing for 15 months, we reward him with another 1 year contract extension

£120,000 a week for a player that's missed 90 games in 5.5 years.

Thanks for the 6 month purple patch in 2018 Ox - i'll always remember that goal against City in the CL - but he should be allowed to leave in the summer

[Keith Lard]

The biggest mystery is how he was ever given a contract extension after his injury against Roma?!

He signed in 2017 on a 5 year deal.

He gets a horrific injury against Roma in April 2018 and is out of action for a year, returning in April 2019. From April until the summer, he picked up 2 further injuries that means he only plays 2 games in the 2018/19 season. He's still at this point got 3 years left on his contract.

In the summer of 2019, despite him not really playing for 15 months, we reward him with another 1 year contract extension

£120,000 a week for a player that's missed 90 games in 5.5 years.

Thanks for the 6 month purple patch in 2018 Ox - i'll always remember that goal against City in the CL - but he should be allowed to leave in the summer

Hindsight is 20/20. He was part of a great era and he was also probably a great influence off the pitch. And yes, that purple patch was special.

Wish the lad well. Injuries did for him and that’s sad, but that’s life. Hopefully he can contribute til the end of the season and go on to have a good injury free career for the rest of his days.

[Red-Soldier]

The biggest mystery is how he was ever given a contract extension after his injury against Roma?!

He signed in 2017 on a 5 year deal.

He gets a horrific injury against Roma in April 2018 and is out of action for a year, returning in April 2019. From April until the summer, he picked up 2 further injuries that means he only plays 2 games in the 2018/19 season. He's still at this point got 3 years left on his contract.

In the summer of 2019, despite him not really playing for 15 months, we reward him with another 1 year contract extension

£120,000 a week for a player that's missed 90 games in 5.5 years.

Thanks for the 6 month purple patch in 2018 Ox - i'll always remember that goal against City in the CL - but he should be allowed to leave in the summer

This.  It was an absolute shocking piece of business.  Terrible decision.

[Always_A_Red]

Hindsight is 20/20. He was part of a great era and he was also probably a great influence off the pitch. And yes, that purple patch was special.

Wish the lad well. Injuries did for him and that’s sad, but that’s life. Hopefully he can contribute til the end of the season and go on to have a good injury free career for the rest of his days.

You dont need hindsight with an ACL mate. They're generally career ending injuries and very few ever get to the levels they were before them. Look at what it's done to Gomez and now VVD. Complete shells of themselves since they had their injuries. It'd be like giving VVD another contract now and then when he regresses over the next 2 years (which he will do), say 'well we didn't know did we'.

It felt like an empathetic gesture at the time due to what he'd been through rather than reward for a 6 month purple patch.

[farawayred]

The biggest mystery is how he was ever given a contract extension after his injury against Roma?!

He signed in 2017 on a 5 year deal.

He gets a horrific injury against Roma in April 2018 and is out of action for a year, returning in April 2019. From April until the summer, he picked up 2 further injuries that means he only plays 2 games in the 2018/19 season. He's still at this point got 3 years left on his contract.

In the summer of 2019, despite him not really playing for 15 months, we reward him with another 1 year contract extension

£120,000 a week for a player that's missed 90 games in 5.5 years.

Thanks for the 6 month purple patch in 2018 Ox - i'll always remember that goal against City in the CL - but he should be allowed to leave in the summer

Said that a few pages back. Quite an eyebrow-raising decision, considering the Keita situation in 2019, when Paul Put has "tested his resolve" with the national team.

These two, along with a couple of other decisions play a role in current predicament regarding our midfield players.

[decosabute]

This.  It was an absolute shocking piece of business.  Terrible decision.

Absolutely no one was saying that at the time. And people constantly ignore the fact that Chamberlain played and contributed a huge amount in the title winning season 2019-20. Pretty sure he was our highest scorer outside of Mane and Salah. People constantly act as though his career basically ended vs Roma, but it's not true at all.

I think we can all agree he should've been sold in 2021 or last summer, but acting like giving him a new deal 6 fucking years ago was some disastrous decision is nonsense.

[Mighty_Red]

Not gonna shit on Ox like some on here, he was brilliant in 18 until the injury and contributed with goals and as a rotation option in 19/20. Injuries have robbed him of a career here but I do think that his minutes should be split between him, Carvalho and Elliott.

Think it would take him at least 4-5 months to make a contribution in terms of overall play so if we play him we are probably benefitting another team. Its a great shame but now we should look forward.

[Shankly!Shankly!]

Absolutely no one was saying that at the time. And people constantly ignore the fact that Chamberlain played and contributed a huge amount in the title winning season 2019-20. Pretty sure he was our highest scorer outside of Mane and Salah. People constantly act as though his career basically ended vs Roma, but it's not true at all.

I think we can all agree he should've been sold in 2021 or last summer, but acting like giving him a new deal 6 fucking years ago was some disastrous decision is nonsense.

Depends who you talk to I suppose. Most people I know been laughing at that transfer since day 1. Ox was good for a very short bit and then got ruined with injuries after having loads of injuries prior

[nerdster4]

He was good pre Roma at times

Explosive

Played well against city couple of times

But not often enough

And he made the tackle against Roma . A Terrible tackle

Overall verdict : somewhat underwhelming

[Always_A_Red]

Absolutely no one was saying that at the time. And people constantly ignore the fact that Chamberlain played and contributed a huge amount in the title winning season 2019-20. Pretty sure he was our highest scorer outside of Mane and Salah. People constantly act as though his career basically ended vs Roma, but it's not true at all.

I think we can all agree he should've been sold in 2021 or last summer, but acting like giving him a new deal 6 fucking years ago was some disastrous decision is nonsense.

He really wasn't. Bobby was 3rd with 9 goals. VVD scored 5 PL goals in that year.

Ox played 30 PL games, scoring 4 and assisting 1.

Gini, Henderson, Trent & Origi also scored 4 that year.

No doubt he played a role in that season and we'll always be thankful for his contribution, but he would have had that season with or without the contract extension.

It made absolutely no sense and the fact he was still contracted this previous summer (instead of being out of contract), with another injury that has seen him miss 16 games this season, meant we didn't have space in the squad to add a midfielder to the squad that has a future here. 

[Clint Eastwood]

Agree, people have very short memories.

Has offered little since that injury though and annoys me when he gets game time over a youngster.

Yep. Although I do think the idea of playing youngsters always sounds better than how it is in reality. Doak looks extremely promising, but you could see yesterday that a competitive PL fixture is a bit too much of a step up at the moment. I’d have both Carvalho and Elliott ahead of Oxlade-Chamberlain in the front three right now.

Oxlade-Chamberlain is definitely one of the many that we held on to for too long. Realistically he probably should have been sold in 2020 when it was clear he wasn’t a serious option for us, but his stock was still high. We did the same with Origi. It’s not his fault, obviously.

[decosabute]

Depends who you talk to I suppose. Most people I know been laughing at that transfer since day 1. Ox was good for a very short bit and then got ruined with injuries after having loads of injuries prior

People were laughing at it from day one? Ok.

And you're doing the same thing I just mentioned - just ignoring his 43 appearances and 8 goals in one of the greatest seasons in club history. Chamberlain clearly isn't much use to us anymore and should've been sold before now, but it always annoys me that people reduce his entire Liverpool career to three good months. He's contributed more than that and deserves more respect.

I don't even know why I feel the need to get involved in this, but it just winds me up when muppets on here blame our current woes on a contract that was given out 6 years ago to a player who'd been on fire for us.

[farawayred]

His contract extension alone albeit strange (many said that at the time) was not a disastrous decision, but it showed a glimpse into the club thinking forward. The other way to look at a single decision is to say that that is the reason we won the title that season, which would be equally wrong.

I think that the decision to keep Ox long-term indicates that we had no plans to strengthen the midfield beyond the next couple of years. We then lost Lallana and brought in Thiago (I think). We had Shaq (blowing hot/cold), Ox and Keita often injured (the latter more so), Curtis promising but not established even now, peak Hendo and Gini, who raised Fab's game... It was all dandy. But with Gini gone, Hendo and Milner needed succession planning at the very same time that we need Ox / Keita / Curtis succession planning. And I don't always agree with Al, but he's spot on when he points to who we bought in that time, even young talent - non-midfielders in Elliott and Carvalho (Diaz, Jota were needed for different reasons, and I'll leave Gakpo out of this).

That's how I see Ox's contract extension - if it wasn't offered, we'd have another midfielder lined up for 2020 or 2021. And we needed that.

[decosabute]

He really wasn't. Bobby was 3rd with 9 goals. VVD scored 5 PL goals in that year.

Ox played 30 PL games, scoring 4 and assisting 1.

Gini, Henderson, Trent & Origi also scored 4 that year.

No doubt he played a role in that season and we'll always be thankful for his contribution, but he would have had that season with or without the contract extension.

It made absolutely no sense and the fact he was still contracted this previous summer (instead of being out of contract), with another injury that has seen him miss 16 games this season, meant we didn't have space in the squad to add a midfielder to the squad that has a future here.

Ok fine, if you want to get hung up on that (not that it was really the point at all), he was our highest scorer outside of Mane, Salah, Firmino in all comps, with 8 goals.

[Dumbstar]

You are rewriting history. Ox was never that good and never started more than half the games, competing with players like Can. And 35M was a lot of money back then, so he was certainly not a bargain.

It was a lot of money as he was in the last year of his contract.

But he was playing really well. He wouldn't have been a superstar like Mane,Salah,VVD etc but could still have had a very memorable spell with us. In the game v Roma when he got injured he started ahead of Wijnaldum. You have to wonder if he never got injured would be have kept Gino out of the side.

[Always_A_Red]

Ok fine, if you want to get hung up on that (not that it was really the point at all), he was our highest scorer outside of Mane, Salah, Firmino in all comps, with 8 goals.

I've never once said he wasn't a good player in spells, so I don't get why you're insisting on blowing smoke up the lads arse.

He shouldn't have been given a contract extension after suffering from an ACL. It's really not hard to grasp the point I'm making.

[jepovic]

It was a lot of money as he was in the last year of his contract.

But he was playing really well. He wouldn't have been a superstar like Mane,Salah,VVD etc but could still have had a very memorable spell with us. In the game v Roma when he got injured he started ahead of Wijnaldum. You have to wonder if he never got injured would be have kept Gino out of the side.

He was playing fine, but to me he was never what I would call a key player or brilliant. Semantics I guess, he was certainly good enough for a while.
But we have recruited and held on to too many injury prone midfielders: Ox, Lallana, Keita, Thiago.
Gini wasn't really better than any of them, but he was almost always available and therefore in form. Holding on to him even longer would have made things even worse though, but it's that kind of robustness that we miss now.

[darragh85]

unfortunately, injuries have taken their toll. should be any where near starting. extremely slow now

[MrGrumpy]

He was playing fine, but to me he was never what I would call a key player or brilliant. Semantics I guess, he was certainly good enough for a while.
But we have recruited and held on to too many injury prone midfielders: Ox, Lallana, Keita, Thiago.
Gini wasn't really better than any of them, but he was almost always available and therefore in form. Holding on to him even longer would have made things even worse though, but it's that kind of robustness that we miss now.

Lallana played a lot of games in his first three seasons, injuries only became an issue in the final part of his time at Liverpool.

Until now, the injuries in midfield have not been an issue as Henderson and Fabinho have been mostly fit and in form for a fair few seasons.

[Nick110581]

He has vanished again

[dirkster]

He has vanished again

So has Curtis Jones. What's happened to them both?

[BarryCrocker]

He has vanished again

Where could he possibly appear? Nearly back to a full squad available and the team are getting results. Only two things to play for now so it will nigh on impossible for him to much game time.

[spider-neil]

So has Curtis Jones. What's happened to them both?

Alien abduction.