Speaking to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain about his Liverpool career was a celebration of togetherness in a time when we won it all…
ALEX Oxlade-Chamberlain joined in the summer of 2017, the same summer as Andy Robertson and Mo Salah. He joined a year after Sadio Mane, Joel Matip and Gini Wijnaldum and a few months before Virgil van Dijk. Fabinho and Alisson would follow soon after. One of the great Liverpool sides and arguably one of the greatest sides this country has ever seen, being put together piece by piece.
That 2017/18 season was brilliant. I love a season that explodes out of nowhere. You spend a few months unsure and then suddenly you are on a rocket ship shooting straight to the stars. Or Kyiv at least. Chamberlain was a huge part of that explosion, even if he didn’t quite make it to the final destination. In a midfield sometimes described as “workman like” he offered the drive forward, the link up, the shots on goal. But it was all the fight that surprised us. That fancy lad from down south wasn’t meant to press like a monster. Was he? Maybe he was.
I didn’t want to ask him too much about the injury against Roma. “Remember one of the worst days of your life, Alex?” But I did want to help him reclaim a little bit of what happened after that. I think the narrative has become a little bit “he took a while to settle and then he was brilliant for three months and then got injured and that was that”. But that wasn’t that.
He worked to get back and then he plays 30 out of the 38 games when Liverpool won the league in 19/20. On top of that he starts both games in Qatar where Liverpool become champions of the world. He also started the Super Cup game against Chelsea. Some medals you, lad.
Even in the 21/22 season where Liverpool nearly win the lot, he starts the first game of the season. In the winning League Cup run he starts and scores against Arsenal and again against Leicester in THAT game where Diogo Jota told the whole of Leicestershire to fuck off. When Mo Salah goes to AFCON he even does a decent impersonation on the right side, scoring against Brentford at the back post.
But by the time we reach the Champions League final, he’s no longer involved. He’s on the bench, not getting on. We went to the media day at the training ground where players who were likely to feature spoke to the press and he was at the periphery looking a bit sad. But then he saw me and came over to say hello because he’s relentlessly sound. And we talked about anything but football.
I think most people – probably even him – expected him to move on that summer but he didn’t. Instead he went on Liverpool’s pre-season and he looked great. And I’m telling anyone who will listen “Chamberlain looks great here” because I fucking love him and he looks desperate to show he still has something to offer, and then his leg goes and he looks devastated. And that’s the injury that ends it all. Not Roma. That one.
But we’ll always have City at home and City at home again and the parades and the medals and the parties and the most amazing football team that conquered the world. Whenever I speak to Liverpool players, but especially ones from that period, I only really want to know one thing. I do a lot of messing about but I basically just want to know: Did you feel it too? The best time of our lives. Did it mean as much to you as it did to me? To us? And there is a moment in this interview where I basically manage to ask that and his answer is everything I ever wanted and more.
And then we stopped and we chatted for ages and I don’t think he really wanted us to go. Because he’s relentlessly sound but also because I think we all just enjoyed living in that period for a bit and we didn’t want to go back outside into the real world. I hope you enjoy the interview as much as me and I hope you enjoyed 2017-2020 as much as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
