Oxlade-Chamberlain responds to ‘stupid’ comments from Thierry Henry

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has finally spoken out about comments by Thierry Henry over his value to a team.

The 24 year-old completed a £40m switch from Arsenal to Liverpool last summer and is enjoying his first season at Anfield.

Among those who appeared to question The Ox’s quality were Gary Neville and Henry. The latter said: ‘I have been watching him for a very long time and I still don’t know what he’s good at.’

Neville, who had worked with Oxlade-Chamberlain in the England set-up said: ‘Everyone seems to be eulogising over him but he doesn’t get in the best XI and strengthen their team. He has three or four areas of his game which he has to significantly improve.’

Henry added: ‘You have to bring something on the table. I have been watching him for a very long time and I still don’t know what he’s good at.’

Oxlade-Chamberlain took the man of the match award for Liverpool’s 2-0 win over Newcastle last weekend. The England international appears to have settled in a central-midfield role under Jurgen Klopp as Liverpool go from strength to strength in the league.

The former Southampton forward called the comments ‘stupid’ and admitted they weren’t ‘nice to hear’.

‘I was very aware of those comments. It is not nice to hear it from your peers or people you have worked with.

‘Saying you don’t know what I do when you have worked with me, I think it is a bit stupid. When you have watched someone long enough you know what they can do. ‘They can have their own opinions. It cannot shake me. Fair enough if that is what they think, I am not really too bothered.’

‘If people want to say those things, you remember them, you don’t forget them, but I am not here to make enemies. ‘The important thing is that when I came here I had a manager who had faith in me and he felt something different to that and I had faith in myself.

‘Everyone says you have to be your own biggest fan and believe in yourself. I am old enough and wise enough and I have been around it long enough to know that things will be said, and not nice things a lot of the time – and when you are doing well, nice things will be said.

‘That is all part and parcel of it [but] it is never nice to hear it from people you have worked with.’

Henry has responded to the Ox’s and suggested that Oxlade-Chamberlain was never given a proper run in the Arsenal side in a permanent position.

‘Oxlade-Chamberlain deserves praise for what he’s done during his short time at Liverpool so far. But we didn’t see that clearly at Arsenal,’ he told Sky Sports.

‘At Arsenal, there has always been a lot of debate as to what Oxlade-Chamberlain’s best position is. One day he was a wing back, one day he was a left winger, one day a right winger and on another a number 10. That was the problem, we just didn’t know.

‘It’s so difficult to find out who you are and what you are good at if you don’t have a run of games in a settled position.’

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