• You may have to login or register before you can post and view our exclusive members only forums.
    To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Oxlade-Chamberlain

Forums New posts
Status
Not open for further replies.
I read a piece last year about Gunners fans growing increasingly frustrated with his general lack of ability on the ball. Something along the line of; if Ox had an end product to his game he'd be world class but more often than not he squanders possession or flies shots miles over'.

Whenever I watched him play afterwards (not that much but a few times) I couldn't help to see how many good positions and great opportunities he put himself in, and how often he made a mess of those final balls. Very much like how he has begun his Liverpool career as well.

What I am saying is, I can kinda understand if you as a manager sees the potential and 'what if' scenario, as in 'what if I can teach him to make that final ball count more often than not', but I am also slightly worried that he might not be able to improve that part of the game. As of now he doesn't look like an improvement but maybe there's a a faint hope somewhere, that he can improve parts of his game and become far more industrious and less infuriating to watch.
 
That explains why they were so angry when he left then. Good old Gunners fans, as contrary as hell. Is it Wenger Out or In this week?
 
rurikbird said:
Interesting take on Oxlade-Chamberlain's connection to rugby and how it influences his playing style:

=======
Countless factors influence a professional footballer's playing style; some physical, some psychological, some natural, some learned. Among the more obscure but most intriguing, though, is a player's experience of other sports.
Take, for example, Zlatan Ibrahimovic; it's unquestionably significant that a player renowned for scoring acrobatic goals with overhead kicks, scissor kicks and bicycle kicks has a black belt in taekwondo.
It's similarly notable that four of the five Americans, who have made the most Premier League appearances -- Brad Friedel, Tim Howard, Kasey Keller and Brad Guzan -- are goalkeepers, which makes sense considering their country traditionally excels in team sports where you use hands rather than feet.
Mousa Dembele, meanwhile, achieves hugely impressive statistics in terms of both dribbling and passing, but has managed just seven goals in five Premier League campaigns with Tottenham and sometimes appears completely incapable of shooting.
Why? Well, according to Dembele in a 2012 interview, as a teenager he "always played on the street with two lamp posts that were like a basketball pitch and we could not shoot. You had to dribble and touch the ball on the posts to score; we never shot the ball." Suddenly, the reasons for his limitations become clear He grew up playing a game that didn't involve shooting.
Another player who excelled at other sports was Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. While his dad Mark Chamberlain played football for England in the 1980s, Oxlade-Chamberlain wasn't engrossed in that sport alone and was more of an all-rounder. His mum had a trial for England's volleyball team, so he comes from fine sporting stock.
Oxlade-Chamberlain was privately educated, which is rare among current English professional players, and attended St John's College, near Portsmouth on a sports scholarship. However, football was only offered until the age of 11, after which the focus was cricket and rugby.
He was already part of Southampton's academy but Oxlade-Chamberlain was also a fine wicketkeeper-batsman at cricket and excelled at rugby. He turned down trials for both Hampshire and London Irish respectively, to concentrate on his football career, although he remains handy at cricket and rugby.
Oxlade-Chamberlain is a naturally gifted sportsman first and foremost, rather than a pure technical footballer, who also has athletic ability. Football and cricket are so different that one is unlikely to impact the other in a technical sense, although both Gary and Phil Neville were excellent young cricketers and have spoken about that sport's impact upon their mental development.
Nigel Owen/Action Plus via Getty Images
The similarities between football and rugby are more obvious; that latter, after all, originated from the former. Both involve playing the ball between team members and, broadly speaking, attacking the opposition posts. The manner in which the ball is moved differs significantly, however, and that is where Oxlade-Chamberlain's footballing style becomes interesting.
The offside rule in rugby essentially bans forward passes and, therefore, attacking involves carrying the ball forward. Play a six-a-side game with a rugby-playing friend and their style is often very specific: Upon receiving a pass, they instantly charge forward, rather than stopping to assess passing options.
They naturally attempt to gain yards, before either storming past opponents with pace, power and a change of direction, rather than trickery with the ball. They offload the ball as a last resort, generally sideways, when their personal path to goal is blocked.
This, essentially, is how Oxlade-Chamberlain plays football. He's a ball carrier, who storms into spaces after receiving possession. In a positional sense, meanwhile, whether fielded on the right, left or through the middle, he essentially plays the same way, as a box-to-box midfielder-cum-winger.
And while his crossing has improved, he doesn't offer genuinely top-class end product; he's not fundamentally gifted at the basic art of kicking the ball. His scoring record is disappointing -- in six full seasons with Arsenal his highest total in all competitions is six goals -- as he often snatches at chances.
But more relevant, for a player generally considered an attacking midfielder, is that Oxlade-Chamberlain rarely plays penetrative passes. It's difficult to remember him providing anything that could be considered a moment of "genius," or any through balls behind the defence for onrushing teammates, and the stats show that he has assisted just 14 goals in 135 Premier League games.
That smacks of a "rugby approach" to the game; Oxlade-Chamberlain is a linear footballer, who carries the ball forward and passes it sideways. And this is essentially no different from his rugby-playing style: In a 2012 interview with Arsenal Magazine, he explained that, with the oval ball, he was "just the person that got the ball, ran quickly and tried to stay out of the way of any contact."
An 11-man team can only accommodate a certain number of creative players and, while many might have been waiting for Oxlade-Chamberlain to become a genuine attacking threat, he's always offered different qualities, like speed, energy, adaptability and commitment, which happen to be typical rugby attributes.
The widespread shift toward three-man defences encouraged Arsene Wenger to deploy Oxlade-Chamberlain as a wing-back in recent months, which seemed the best possible use of him; there's no other position where a player's role is all about getting up and down the pitch repeatedly, with and without the ball.
Oxlade-Chamberlain, however, appears to have turned down the opportunity to join Chelsea precisely because he didn't want to play wing-back in Antonio Conte's 3-4-3. His move to Liverpool is supposedly about a desire to be fielded in a box-to-box central midfield role, which seems peculiar considering how many other options Liverpool have in that position. Georginio Wijnaldum and Emre Can are more accomplished footballers, to the extent that club vice-captain James Milner hasn't been able to force his way into the side in recent weeks.
Indeed, it's worth remembering that Milner joined Liverpool for a very similar reason; he was tired of playing on either flank with Manchester City and was promised a central role by Brendan Rodgers. Last season, however, he found himself playing left-back, and now finds himself out of the team entirely. He is, to a top side, no more than a handy, workmanlike utility man, and it's difficult to see how Oxlade-Chamberlain differs.
He might well be suited to Jurgen Klopp's overall system, however; an approach that is based around physicality, energy and sprinting forward whenever possible. That is, after all, Oxlade-Chamberlain's natural rugby-style game. But there are few signs he possesses the required intelligence to play in the central midfield, and with Adam Lallana still to come back into contention for Klopp's side to provide that creativity, and the brilliant Naby Keita set to arrive next summer and provide true all-round qualities, one can't help feeling that Oxlade-Chamberlain will have to settle for a fringe role.
Nevertheless, while Oxlade-Chamberlain admits he's gone off rugby in recent years, his experience of the sport remains obvious in his playing style. He is essentially a runner, a worker, a ball-carrier. Playing in a pressing-based Liverpool makes some degree of sense, but it's difficult to shake the feeling that a role as a wing-back for reigning champions Chelsea would have suited his skill set much better.
Click to expand...

Wow man. Absolutely no chance that I will find out if that is interesting read or not :confused:
 
juniormember said:
I’m shocked. I thought you were a fan of anyone with speed.
Click to expand...

I know, I still can't quite shake off my hopes for Moreno, for example.

I've always been very vocal about the requirement for plenty of pace in the team, but of course that's mainly in wider positions and attack.

In more central positions, I don't expect every player to be a speed-merchant - two of my favourite players in recent years were Alonso and Hamann - but to play in a central role, attacking or otherwise, you need to have a football brain to be effective; simply hauling the ball forward at pace and getting past players, and then being entirely incapable of creating chances and scoring goals, is no fucking use to anyone.
 
Normally to get a comedy highlights reel like that you'd have to trawl through several games at least to find that much shite passing or lack of control and technique but he managed it all in the space of a single game which is impressive. Maybe he's got all of his fuck ups out of the way in one game and from now on he'll be great. Or not , I suppose we'll see.
 
Last edited:
juniormember said:
I played a lot of rugby (how a school in Liverpool can have no footy and only rugby is beyond me) and I agree with the article to an extent. But incisive short passes become part of the thinking if you’re a back in rugby, which I imagine Ox was, so him currently not making too many short pass and moves contradicts that somewhat. Not to mention it’s pretty easy to switch disciplines and mentality when you’re at an early age from sports to sports.
Click to expand...

Merchant Taylors or Bluecoat?
 
Just checking in. couldn't be arsed to watch that last night as it was clear what the outcome was going to be. So is he still shite? Thanks in advance.
 
jexykrodic said:
I see the six game honeymoon period to assess a new player has been reduced to three.
Click to expand...

Possibly. Or we have seen him over the years at Arsehole FC and know he is utter dogshit. If he becomes a Liverpool stalwart I will eat my hat. And it's not a very appetising hat.
 
SFX were the football kings!

Bluecoat had a football team when I was in school, too.

How old are you, @juniormember if you don't mind me asking? I knew quite a few people in Liverpool College.
 
Halmeister said:
SFX were the football kings!
Click to expand...

My son Leo played for SFX Old Boys for a few years, although he had no connection with the school and actually went to the Bluecoat. SFX Old Boys were managed by Kevin Byrne, a Harry-Redknapp-style manager.
 
Halmeister said:
Ha poor Jules, always gets a shout out when it comes to age.

You're still a tad older than me, though, so I doubt we would've crossed paths, I'm 30 this year.
Click to expand...
Ah, your avatar had me thinking you were older! Yeah I was only there between 12-19 so I doubt we would have crossed paths.
 
Silver Sean said:
I'm 48. Which I why I constantly hark back the old days. Mainly because football wasn't a load of utter shite, and we were fucking boss.
Click to expand...

Obviously being only 29, I haven't seen anywhere near as much success as many of the more senior posters on here, but I've still seen some great triumphs. However, I can't help but agree that football is a load of shite now, even compared to the 90s and early 00s. I hate it at the minute. In fact, that's wrong, I don't even hate it. I just don't care. I haven't watched the last 3 matches, and I turned off at half time against City. The game has really gone to the dogs.
 
Halmeister said:
Obviously being only 29, I haven't seen anywhere near as much success as many of the more senior posters on here, but I've still seen some great triumphs. However, I can't help but agree that football is a load of shite now, even compared to the 90s and early 00s. I hate it at the minute. In fact, that's wrong, I don't even hate it. I just don't care. I haven't watched the last 3 matches, and I turned off at half time against City. The game has really gone to the dogs.
Click to expand...

I'm with you. It feels so plastic now. Not that I'm saying that having old guys piss down the Kop when I was a kid was some sort of nirvana, but football was for us. Not some mass-produced, over-inflated, 24-hour-a-day bloated corpse played by twats, covered by twats, and consumed by twats. When I see a crowd filming a player taking a corner on their phones I want to puke.
I'm not even sure if we finally ever did win the league how much pleasure it would give me now.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

localny
    • Like
They think it’s all over…
2
Replies
47
Views
1K
StevieM
StevieM
Brizzle
  • Locked
Pre Match Norwich (H) FA Cup - Sun 14:30
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Replies
331
Views
7K
mom
mom
Hyena
    • Like
Bringin Sexy Back
Replies
28
Views
884
Hyena
Hyena
Hyena
Where will they slot in?
2
Replies
35
Views
715
Frogfish
Frogfish
rurikbird
  • Locked
Xhaka celebration
Replies
4
Views
376
binomial
binomial
Back
Top Bottom