Ahead of today’s pre-season friendly with Chelsea in China, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is being linked with a move to the West London club after telling Arsenal he has no intention of signing the contract currently on offer to him.
It’s not the first time that such information has been leaked to the media. Back in March, the Telegraph reported that, “Sources close to the 23-year-old have suggested he needs a fresh challenge with Arsenal yet to offer him a new deal.
“It now appears that there is little chance that Oxlade-Chamberlain will sign a new contract even if one is offered to him because the club have left it so late and he craves more regular first-team football.”
Of course we all understand ‘sources’ = agent, and Oxlade-Chamberlain’s agent, Aidy Ward, is a notoriously difficult person to deal with. He was the man who engineered Raheem Sterling’s move from Liverpool to Man City, and by all account he’s been putting pressure on the Arsenal man to reject new terms despite the player being relatively happy at the club.
The other thing to bear in mind is that this story is being put out there by Sky Sports who, this summer, have been about as reliable as a 1973 Skoda.
Nevertheless, it puts more pressure on Arsenal ahead of the new season as they look to deal with a litany of contractual issues and players that they wish to move on.
Old fashioned poo-o-meter on this one as our interactive one is in the workshop.
No!
No way. No fucking way. I don’t like this one bit.
They might want him but they can’t have him
I’d happily swap him with cesc. For football reasons.
One has a position he’s played all his life but is not playing. The other is playing but wants to try out a position where he will hardly play.
Plus the end product thing
I know it’s only preseason but I’m sitting here watching us two nil down to Chelsea after being thoroughly outplayed by Munich. Apart from the FA cup final we’ve looked lacklustre for some time. We need something new, that’s for sure. Stagnant at present.
Unfortunately that new thing isn’t going to happen for another 2 years,at least. Strap yourself in for more of the same crap and hope the club finally sees sense before we become a complete non-entity.
I know it’s only a friendly but we do look worryingly incompetent in defence once again. Maitland-Niles is having an absolute shocker. Why are we selling Chambers?
Hopefully this is another reminder that the squad needs fresh faces and fresh motivation. Unfortunately we all know Wenger too well to think he’s capable of any tactical originality so it has to be new signings. Two big ones please! Three if Sanchez moves…
Uh, because we have Mustafi, Holding, and Gabriel ahead of him on the right side of a three, not Maitland-Niles.
If he thinks he’s not playing enough at Arsenal he certainty won’t be playing enough at Chelsea.
Not too sure about that. If you have seen how good Moses was for them last year someone with ox’ potential could be massive in that position. Question is if he’s happy with that positition. I don’t see him get too many games in central midfield there.
Exactly. I can’t see him playing many central midfield games for Chelsea. Our midfield, on the other hand, will be out of players thanks to injured and Xhaka Cards and screaming for him at about October.
Look at how they have treated cesc
News that feeds the beast in their narratives. Not even Chelsea will guarantee him a better starting chance than Arsenal. He will at most be a sub for Moses. Does he want to displace Hazard in the creative midfield department? They just need more cash imo. The chap is fully Arsenal
Ah I like the return of the poo-o-meter and this one deserves a lot of plop!!! I saw the chavs want him as cover for two of their more senior players lol so going to them would not be good for someone wanting to play more regular football, but it’d probably impact positively on his wallet!!!
Funny you mention the Skysports bit because they’ve just announced that we have rejected a 10m pound bid for Gibbo – any truth?
Will never understand transfer fees, if kyle walker is worth 50million how is gibbs only worth 10, if a club sign him for so little they’ve got a serious bargain, hearing Watford are interested too
I could write a long essay on this. Long story short, the clubs in for Gibbo don’t have access to the funds Chelsea do, and the clubs in for Gibbo are competitively mid to lower table clubs as compared to the top end. Put both of them together and you get a considerably lower fee for a player who played second fiddle to Monreal last season. In saying that, I do think in the current market, 10m is low but I’d settle for 15m or counter with something in between to enable us to take him off the wage bill.
Ox is coming off a bit delusional. Arsenal have stuck by him and given him time when no other top club would. Now he thinks hes going to go to Chelsea or Man city and get lots of playing time?
Don’t you f*cking dare ox, don’t you dare.
Even in this summer – Sky has been far more reliable than any other sources…
Anyway, this is what happens when the guy who’s pretty much in charge of everything in the club stalls his decision on whether staying or not for the whole season, You can’t just wait until players are in the last 12 months of their contract…
Most of the others are just printing lies
There’s a scene in Generation Kill where general Mattis says to one of his colonels, “not only no, colonel, but FUCK NO!”. Wenger can tell Chelsea that.
Ox, Neymar, Sanchez… if they get the money they want, they’ll stay alright.
It always confuses me when you’ve got a seemingly good bloke like Ox who has an absolute ring piece for an agent. You’d think he’d switch agents but hey ho.
I like your post but more than that I love your name. You may have to get used to constant thumbs up from me regardless what you say.
More transfer b*llocks.
Bull…. but I’ll play along and say 40….As Putin said about buildong stadiums for WC…”Abramovich has money…he can pay..@
I see that City have agreed a £52 million deal for Mendy.
And all talk is of players leaving Arsenal.
We are just being left further and further behind.
Aside from Lacazette what else have we done?
Not a lot…
Mercenaries the whole lot of them! But I suppose their are very few football pundit jobs around when they retire… not many pubs left either, so they need money to sit there doing nothing for 40 or 50 years…Maybe becoming an agent should be a career choice…
We got a left back who was on the Bundesliga team of the year (you know, the best left back in Germany).
Has Ox played at CM at all so far in pre-season? Looks like he’s RWB again today. If we were trying to convince him to stay do you think we’d maybe play him in the middle a bit?
Even if the agent is a cunt (and this guy is) I still can’t see why this wasn’t resolved a long time ago, players like Ox shouldn’t be that hard to negotiate a deal with.
If however, Ox is adamant that he’s not signing you have to sell, he a good player but very replaceable, we can’t have all our players leaving on frees nex year.
Arsenal need to start giving out tough love and demand a few ultimatums, either you are with us or against us.
We seem to be rejected left and right from our own players. Good that we hired a good contracts negotiator.
Players know that we can’t compete for the big prizes under this Manager, that’s the main problem.
Ox will be dumb to go to Chelski. He wont gain much playtime.
Think the poo rating on this is extremely high…That being said, regardless of what you may think of his idiot agent, there is a valid point that the club have (once again) left things very late to negotiate.
huh? If he can’t get into Arsenal’s starting lineup (especially in the middle), then there’s no way he cracks Chelsea’s starting 11…
Why do players feel they need these stupid agents? Just represent yourself, pretty common in some North American sports.
Pffft. We’re not selling him to Chelsea.
I’m not at all convinced that the Ox will ever be anything other than potential. He talks the talk but doesn’t produce the goods, he is now a senior player and demanding big wages, but he’s unreliable and his decision making and crossing is bad and he doesn’t score goals, so what exactly is the point of him? He wants to play in the middle but he gives the ball away all the time and doesn’t seem to be very skillful, his biggest talent seems to be running down blind alleys. If he thinks he’s going to leave Arsenal and… Read more »
Well said vonnie
Nah. Ox is 100% Gooner. No worries here. What I feel may be best for the Ox is to play him wide on the right where he can exact maximum damage on the opponents. Wingback is OK for him too but we need to have the Option to go back to a 4-2-3-1 if need be. The other player I think should find a role this coming season is Iwobi. He has sparkled for me and I don’t feel we are getting the best from him so high up and wide (which is where Ox should be playing) He has… Read more »
Chelsea can have Theo though if they like. I can’t see how Theo and Ox will be in for the same role on the right (and Wenger is persisting with Iwobi there too) Someone’s got to give. For me, Theo is not nuanced enough for someone at his age and experience level. He’s improved with his technicality but he tends to panic when running out of turf and isn’t good in tight confines. There’s a fundamental difference between the way Theo operates with the ball and the Ox. The Ox is very polish for a local lad technically and runs… Read more »
So the deal is that Alex wants to play centrally and be a starter and this rumour is suggesting he can achieve both at Chelsea, but not here?
Yeah, OK. I think his agent, or whoever, could have come up with a better one than this.
Agents are cunts
We need to see some progress in reducing the number of outstanding issues/contracts ASAP or things could become very uncomfortable this summer and unsettle the team before the start of the new campaign.
Cant see him getting more regular football at Chelsea, especially not at CM. 10 poos for me, Jeff
If he’s not satisfied with his playing time at Arsenal – why would he expect to get more at Chelski ?