Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has been handed a lot more minutes in the past few games than he has been used to in the last few years.
In an exclusive interview with Empire of the Kop, Stan Collymore had his say on where our No.15 stands within our squad and how close he is to a starting role for the club.
It’s fair to say that when all midfielders are fit and available, the 28-year-old doesn’t get into our team ahead of the likes of Fabinho, Thiago Alcantara and Jordan Henderson.
However, all three of those names were fit enough for the squad on Saturday and the former Arsenal man started against his former team, although this was largely down to midfield injuries and fatigue from the international break.
The former striker said to us: “We talk about Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain as if he’s a bit-part player, this is a senior international footballer…
“From my perspective, he hasn’t done enough in his career at all to warrant a spot for 15/20/25 games whereby you absolutely rely on him…
“For me, my preferred [midfield] three at the moment would be Fabinho, Thiago and Jordan but you have to give a big thumbs up to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain because he did play very well on the day”.
It’s always going to be hard for any player to have good form when they don’t play a run of games and we’ve now seen an improvement in the former Southampton player’s performances as he has been afforded more minutes on the pitch.
Injuries have really affected his Anfield career but he has certainly done enough to be rewarded with more game time, Wednesday’s game against Porto could be the perfect opportunity for this and let’s see if he continues to earn his place in the team.
You can watch the Oxlade-Chamberlain clip on our Twitter page, or the full interview is available on our Facebook.
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