Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain discusses his abrupt exit from Liverpool and life with Besiktas in Turkey; ‘Ox’ still admires Mohamed Salah and is impressed with Reds midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai; difficulties with living away from family and how the ‘mental side is tougher than physical side’
Nihad Mujakic tried to block a shot, but he rolled out the red carpet for Oxlade-Chamberlain to fire a low rocket through his legs and into the bottom corner. That goal on Sunday was a throwback to the midfielder at his dynamic best, but it was also a warming moment having discussed such strikes with him earlier in the week.
In a cabin framed by waterfalls on Besiktas’ expansive training campus, Sky Sports News caught up on the past, dissected the present and imagined the future with Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Does he get pangs when his explosive goals for Liverpool resurface on social media? “When I see them I think, ‘I need to do that again, what’s going on?’ They definitely live on in your memory, but when you’re still playing and then there’s a game on the weekend, it’s more looking at, ‘Okay, how did I do that? What did I do? How can I do that again at the weekend?’
“It is obviously nice to see those things when they pop up and just a little reminder that it’s you and your capabilities. If I haven’t done that for a while, it’s more a case of, ‘Okay, I need to get back to doing that because that’s a strength of mine.'”
Oxlade-Chamberlain doesn’t have to rely on past refreshers now. That goal for Besiktas, which secured a point at Ankaragucu, was how he recognises himself – how we recognise him – even if evolution is a natural and necessary part of the game.
“I see clips even from my Arsenal days when I was the sort winger that used to just want the ball to his feet and run at everyone. I don’t really play like that now, but, maybe I still can do that from time to time. You definitely evolve your game.
I think I’m going through that process, for sure, where you have to figure out what your strengths are now, especially in this league, it’s a different league, it’s a different way of playing football. It’s figuring out what versions of yourself you can bring to the team.”
Watching Oxlade-Chamberlain in full flow on Sunday and continually impress after his switch to Turkey is to wonder why no Premier League clubs were willing to take a chance on him following the expiry of his contract with Liverpool.
The overriding answer is concern over his injury history, which wasn’t helped by his non-selection during his final few months on Merseyside.
Despite being fully fit, he was not involved in Liverpool’s matchday squad from mid-February, bar a rare seat on the bench or a few minutes in lost causes. There were conversations with several clubs in the winter window – Newcastle and Brighton among them – but a January exit was blocked and interest in him naturally faded as his game-time froze.
Oxlade-Chamberlain spent the matchdays when he trained on his own and the entirety of the summer physically conditioning himself to rival the best midfielders in the league.
He gathered stats on distances covered, high-intensity sprints and the best performance data from lactate tests around the division to make sure he could match it over a series of months. Oxlade-Chamberlain presented it to clubs but they could not shake suspicion over why he was not playing at Liverpool.
The way his spell at the Anfield side fizzled out is heavy, because his heart had been so full by the people and experiences there. Before suffering ACL damage in April 2018, ‘Ox’ was a driving force of Jurgen Klopp’s midfield, crowning Champions League nights with his glorious strikes. His goals came in clutch during the title-winning season too, and with silverware came some unbreakable bonds.
There are no hard feelings over how his six seasons with Liverpool ended: not being selected, silence, and then being alerted that a statement would be released about him, Roberto Firmino, James Milner and Naby Keita leaving.
Oxlade-Chamberlain holds on to the happier times, and, besides, there are new challenges now – not least trying to juggle being the father to a two-year-old son and playing a distance away in Istanbul.
A: I think there was maybe an element of that for a few of us. The one thing I would say from within the club, in terms of my team-mates, a lot of the staff, the backroom staff, that it was definitely the opposite, in that sense. It was really warm, you know, everyone gave us a great send off for weeks. I think they were the reason why when it came to leaving, that was what made it really hard, leaving so many really good people. I still speak to a lot of them now and still feel like I’m almost a part of that group, even though, of course, I’m not.
I think it’s more just the older you get, in football, you have these sort of moments where you realise things move on, things change. It is a business and I think it’s just changing of the guard and that’s how things go. I don’t really want to dwell too much on it or be salty about it. It’s the way things go in life. And I’ve had many years of having really great experiences and being treated really well at football clubs. So I can’t complain about that. There are obviously elements where you feel part of something, a part of a team and a club, and connected with the fans and everything. You expect a few things to happen and if they don’t, sometimes it could be a bit surprising, but yeah, I haven’t got any real hard feelings about that situation. It’s just the way things go.
