Arsene Wenger says he wanted Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to stay at Arsenal and sign a new deal, but the midfielder made his mind up to leave.
The 24 year old joined Liverpool on deadline day, two days after being part of an Arsenal team that got spanked 4-0 at Anfield.
“He had one year to go,” he said. “At the start of the season we had four players with one year to go.
“I wanted him to extend his contract, yes. He decided to go. We respect that but at the end of the day, I decided to sell.
“We respect his decision and that’s absolutely normal and I have no problem with that.
“What’s important is that the players make a good career, preferably in your club. If it doesn’t happen, you still want them to have a good career.”
It’s pretty magnanimous stuff from Wenger, but he nevertheless reminded the Ox that when you’re at a big club you’ve got to work hard to ensure your place in the team.
“What do you want, to be a big player and not fight?” he said.
“What do you want on top of that, sitting in a rocking chair saying ‘I’m a big player – I don’t need to fight’?
“It does not work like that. Every player can do that and he does it so overall I am convinced it is part of being a top player.”
We’ve had players depart in much more bitter circumstances, but let’s hope Oxlade-Chamberlain reminds us why taking £40m for him was seen as good business.
he hasn’t exactly set the world alight but my concern is we are just using the fee to help offset the loss on sanchez / possibly ozil
Ox would have turned out to be another Walcott. Plays well enough to ensure he’s back in the manager’s mind, but would have never fulfilled the obvious potential he has in this current set up. Fantastic business selling him to Liverpool, he’s perfect for them. Only thinks about bursting forward, sloppy with possession, with his mistakes in dangerous places on the pitch leading to counter attacks. I also would have kept Ozil and Sanchez, I actually agree with what we did this summer (I mean the stance we took with the players we kept & sold, it’s obvious we need… Read more »
I would just say that in general we are extremely indecisive when it comes to player retention & transfers so this summer was just par for the course. Hopefully by bringing a solid backroom staff Arsenal can become much more “professional” in its decision making and transfer dealings.
FFS, we know that…honestly I absolutely love Arsenal, have done for 30 years, but I’m so fucked off with the whole thing now, Sanchez, Ozil, Wenger, going staying, who cares, stop telling us what we already know, the whole clubs a bloody shambles in my eyes, and what really hurts is I don’t even get upset anymore when we lose, because we’re so fucking mediocre. A good start would be to not play Sanchez for one minute for the rest of the season, it’s fucking embarrassing watching him play for us, killing time until he fucks off to play for… Read more »
I suggested before the start of the season that we’ll have to get used to him leaving us eventually so why not do it now (or then as it was at the time) and at least have money to spend on a replacement. As things stand for now we’ll get zilch for a player who has (so far at least) contributed precious little to our season.
I watched the Citeh – Leicester game the other night and there’s Mahrez playing well as always. I wish we had him instead of Sanchez right now.
Sanchez is the dumber party in this situation, I would put Wenger at fault for purchasing such an immature character as that is not usually his type. But Sanchez (nearly 30) would do very well to stick it out at Arsenal as I believe by next season he will have lost a fair amount of his pace which is a huge part of his game and from there on he will be on the down tail of his career. He may go to a big club but will quickly become a squad player as there will be little loyalty in… Read more »
Exactly! Good luck maintaining a regular slot at Man City the way they are playing at the moment. He’ll be a back up there and God help him should he put in a poor performance.
It really is so true what Dial Square says. Not happy? Then fuck them off out of it, regardless of who they are. Any club that does that will always be better off in the long run.
100%! Once a player has decided they want to move to another club, and you block it from happening, 9 times out of 10 they become an absolute liability. Funnily enough…Liverpool should be praised for how they dealt with Suarez, paid him more in the short-term, extended his contract to receive a higher transfer fee, and told him he could leave in a year. Shrewd and creative management. If only we had such ‘internal solutions’ to our contract issues. Its a shame we as a club are not shrewd with transfer dealings, and are generally poor sellers, low fees for… Read more »
We’re very poor with transfer negotiations and even worse at contracts. No getting round that
Aguero sometimes stays on the bench and unused for entire game. Sanchez knows what he can expect that includes the bank account though.
If he goes to lets say City and is part of a rotation challenging for titles or starting out of loyalty at a club that he feels can’t win titles thats a no brainer for him. He’ll get more money and doesn’t have to do everything because he’ll have other top players to play with and lean on.
Well as always? he is so inconsistent since the title winning year. I wouldn’t want him.
100% caligunner. Mahrez was brilliant when they won the league, poor since then & brilliant again since they started winning again under a new manager. A supremely talented player who disappears when things don’t go his way. Surely that is the last thing this Arsenal squad needs.
This is going to continue like it does at every club. This is part of the game when you have star players that other clubs want. If it isn’t Ozil, Wilshere or Sanchez this year it will be x,y or z next year and the year after that.
Look at at Neymar. First year at PSG and rumors of him going to Real already. Thats parts of having star players.
the year that it stops is the year we have no one that other clubs want. That will be a sad sad state lol
we are talking about the ox, no one else
yes, its true, we are talking about the ox, not sanchez, or ozil, but the ox, understand the ox
It’s going to stop next year as we won’t have anyone other teams want!
lol, you mean they do now
In hindsight, that really was a fantastic piece of business.
Maybe it was the way it all went down with him playing a stinker and then leaving to join that very same team, but I couldn’t give a dead rats arse about him. It’s just a pity wenger kept on saying how much he wants him at the club ect when it was clear he had no intention of staying. It really goes to show if a player wants to leave then sell him and move on for everyone’s sake.
Publicly announcing you want to sell him isn’t a very wise way to get the most out of a transfer fee.
The best way to avoid that discussion is not to allow your players to run down their contracts.
Arsenal did the right thing to sell him and considering his patchy form we got paid very well for him.
3 months of patchy form?
I can only hope this is part of the same disinformation process via which we will be getting rid of Walcott
I think it comes down to a bit of Ox not fighting and taking responsibility of himself, but also Ox losing faith in Wenger’s ability to develop him. I mean he hasn’t really progressed since he got her. It may be him, it may be Wenger. Time will tell with his mood. Though I do wonder about Wenger’s once maidas touch to develop youth. Seems to be an issue in recent years (Bellerin has regressed, Iwobi really hasn’t kicked off and seems to have lost that little bit of individualism that he had when he broke through). Ox is gonna… Read more »
This is a late comment on yours, Faisal. Its interesting; AW’s midas touch – things are different now then they were 15-20 years ago. Footballers were hungrier. AW’s philosophy of passing and individual expression seems passe’ now. Its all about, “what’s your system” with all the over analysis and uber analytics. AW was different and fresh. But that seems to be sort of the old way. (perhaps it comes back, who knows.) But footballers these days, with the massive personality rights, the twatter feeds, the instagramming. Its a different ethos. How many of them really take responsibility for their own… Read more »
Of course, this means he’ll play a blinder against us tomorrow, and probably score. Ex players with something to prove always undo us. I’m already bored.
No, we’ll beat them 5-0 and the fifth goal will be a spectacular own goal from Oxtail-Chambermaid, coming about two minutes before his red card.
Alex Overrated-Tumbleweed I hear you say?
Remember when @arseblog came up with one of his funniest names ever for him soon after he joined us & I discussed making a t-shirt using it with the slogan
Forget Walcott We Have Oxencart-Chamberpot
The problem I have with Wenger’s comments is, did he sit with the Ox and tell him.why he was not getting regular game time or play in his preferred position (like what he needed to do to get that)? If he did and the Ox still did not work hard enough then I am happy with the decision. I read about some comments Klopp made about the Ox re: his shortcomings which he is going to work with him to rectify and improve. During his days at Arsenal, every time he played in the middle he did well. His 2… Read more »
100% agree and the Walcott comparison is telling. Last season was arguably his best ever for us but by his own admission, it was totally self-directed. Doesnt feel like Wenger is really developing these players any more…
“why he was not getting regular game time ”
I beg your pardon? Ox was an undisputed starter this season, Bellerin was put to the left to acomodate him, Wenger disturbed the whole structure to please Ox! We lost points because Wenger wanted to convince Ox to stay!
He wasn’t an ‘undisputed’ starter at all. Kolasinac and Monreal were forced to cover LCB and CB respectively. As a result, Bellerin was forced to cover the LWB gap left by kolasinac/monreal. Ox was pretty much the only reasonable option remaining for the RWB position (since at that stage Debuchy & Gibbs were still in exile). That is even before you consider the fact that Bellerin was dropped for bad form last season, and that ox basically took his position and done better (eg FA cup game & league that followed). It’s not like Bellerin has done much better this… Read more »
That’s basically my point above.
We’ve already seen with the Guardian’s story on Hayden the difference in direct coaching between Wenger and Benitez, we already know that Wenger isn’t the most technical and very hands off with his coaching, and we’ve seen the outcome of that.
In many years, we’ve lost some talent who just simply didn’t feel they would progress under Wenger (Ox, Gnabry) Maybe there really is something in that.
Ox’s style suits a klopp team so the deal turned out best for all perties. Next is Alexis, who hasnt been in gd form, or he has forgotten hat made him successful. He seems to try to find thr final ball or shoot EVERY time. It cant work every time cos then the whole team will be working for 1 person’s individual flair good as he may be, it is overdoing it by himself and not trusting his team mates. I know i know… he thinks and some of us think te redt are not up to mark, but surely… Read more »
Give the turncoat hell! I wanna see him doing a Nasri, begging to be taken off.
but he was the future of arsenal lmao
A lot of hate for Ox on here. Injuries played a part of him not showing his best but the main factor was him being mismanaged by Wenger, constantly shunted out to the wing to make way for Ramsey, when in truth Ox has a lot more natural abilities to make it as a top player.
You watch what Klopp does with Ox over the next few years…
Will be unpopular, maybe even blasphemous on here, but we mishandled the Ox situation and lessons need to be learned. Truth is he’s actually doing well for Liverpool in an attacking position and a high tempo style that suits him. Meanwhile instead of looking forward, we’ve prioritised the past, playing a style that doesn’t quite suit many of the players we have, playing people out of position and clinging to superstars who are destined to leave for free. To this day I dont understand the Ox situation. He’s not a defender so why was he playing at RWB where he… Read more »
There’s is this whole baseless talk of being played out of position. Most times when said about Arsenal, it is usually to criticize Wenger and nothing else. All managers play players “out of position”. For instance, let’s look at a few cases from other clubs. 1. Valencia (Manchester United). At Wigan, Valencia was played as a Winger/forward before arriving Manchester. He was a very attacking player and Ferguson used him primarily as a Winger. Both LVG and Mourinho have used him as fullback/wingback and he has excelled there. 2. Azpilicueta (Chelsea) Before arriving Chelsea he played as a right back.… Read more »
Totally agree with selling him, but what use is getting a good financial return on a player at Arsenal. It’s not like that clever piece of Business will allow us to reinvest elsewhere. We have the money if we want to use, but we won’t and will wait last minute in January again for a bargain that doesn’t exist!
Getting a good price on a sale means nothing anymore.
Sorry, guys, but i don’t buy this “Ox left because Wenger wasn’t nice enough to put him where Ox wanted to be”. At Arsenal Özil played on the left, on the right, as a 8, while his fav position is a 10. With Real, he played to the right too, with Germany, he played during the World cup to the left, first, then to the right, as a 10 in finale. Ox is a young player who still has lots to prove. If his Majesty left because he didn’t play where HE wanted to play, then bye bye. That’s the… Read more »
Yes. Let’s take what is applicable to one player and generalize it for all players. Busquets is a damn good defensive midfielder for barcelona so let’s play him on the wings and if they ask us why, we’ll tell them ozil can play in different positions.
No, Alex he makes a good point.
Erm, you do know that Ozil now playing in his favoured role was a key reason for why he chose Arsenal, as he requested that he played in his preferred role as much as possible?
He doesn’t enjoy being on the wings either.
It’s interesting to read what paulinho’s saying about his time playing for the spuds. In all his time there, he only played in his preferred position two or three times and how that can be difficult in a league like England’s. Now he’s doing very well at barcelona.
I simply cannot understand our obsession with “training” young players in positions that aren’t theirs to make them better in their preferred position. What is the point of the Ox signing a new deal if he’s never gonna get his chance in the middle of the park?
Because he wasn’t consistent in his preferred position while starting to show some out on the wing.
Whether or not we did well out of the sale it’s somewhat disingenuous to claim that arsenal made an offer that was knocked back when if fact the club held off offering anything for ages. By the time they did come up with an offer the Ox’s head was already turned. Exactly the same thing is happening with Wilshere
Who is Oxlade-Chamberlain ?
Problem is AW puts too much weightage on “working hard”. U can be talentless but if u show u work harder than much better players than you, u get a chance to the detriment of the overall team. Cygan, senderos, Stepanov, yaya sanogo, Adebayor, diaby (after injury he worked really hard and but aw refuse to accept the fact he is no longer the same after the injury) etc it’s all well and good that a club supports the injured player, cazorla now for eg but there must be a limit. Diaby even got a new contract during his injury.… Read more »