Revealed: Arsenal's Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has not been match fit since he was a teenager

Arsenal's Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain revealed he has not been fully match-fit since he was a teenager

ALEX OXLADE-CHAMBERLAIN has revealed that before the start of this season, he had not played a game fully-fit since he was a teenager.

 

His performances have been one of the bright spots of a stuttering start to the campaign by Arsenal and are likely to earn him a place in the starting line-up in San Marino tomorrow evening.

 

However, after damaging his cruciate ligaments in the opening-day defeat against Aston Villa two years ago ­ just two days after his 20th birthday he has never completely free from injury problems until now.

 

He has played 68 times for club and country during those 24 months, but always with a niggling doubt in the back of his mind.

"The injuries were a knock on effect from the cruciate injury that I had from the first day of the season a couple of years ago when we lost to Villa.

 

Oxlade-Chamberlain admits that Gary Neville is his favourite pundit on Monday Night Football

"It's all been a chain reaction from that, just being out for five or six months for the first time in your life.

"It ended up in my groins from the compensation and I struggled with that for a large part of last season.

"There were times when I tried to get up from the bed or from sitting on the sofa and I was in so much pain.

"I would play 90 minutes and I couldn't get round it in my head that I was struggling with the simplest of tasks but was still playing games.

"Then towards the end of the season something turned the screw, I don't know what. All of a sudden it went away as if nothing had happened."

Now it is the tactical side of his game Oxlade-Chamberlain is trying to get right, helped by the fact that, for this week at least, one of the experts he respects the most is his coach in.

 

"Gary Neville's my favourite pundit," Oxlade-Chamberlain said. "When I watch Monday Night Football, nine times out of 10, I agree with everything he says.

"It could be a tricky situation where he's talking about our games on TV and then he comes to work with England but he seems to manage to do it without any of us holding a grudge against him.

"If I've had a bad game, I know I've had a bad game and I don't mind hearing it. I've had 15 years of hearing it from my dad! I'm the first one to have a go at myself and then it¹s my dad, so if Gary wants to join in, then it's fine!" 

At least Oxlade-Chamberlain can get his own back on the training ground.

"Sometimes when we are a player short he will fill in and he doesn't hold back at all," the Arsenal player said. "It's almost like he's trying to let Roy Hodgson know he's ready to play.

"But last time, he might have pulled a muscle so I haven't seen him since then!"