Liverpool have agreed on a £40m deal with Arsenal for their winger Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain after the England international rejected a move to Chelsea as the Blues wanted him as a wing back as opposed to his desire to play in the central midfield.
The Reds were in the market for a midfielder for quite a while now and even though they had signed Naby Keita a day back, he is to join in the next season and there is a chance than Emre Can might make an exit then.
The 24-year-old English international had already rejected Arsenal’s advances for a contract renewal. Arsene Wenger has used him in numerous positions over the last six years but the player has been most effective from the wide areas.
But it is a known fact that the player favours a midfield role and Klopp is likely to use him in abundance and mould him into a mature box-to-box midfield general.
Liverpool’s three-man midfield demanded more midfielders too and Klopp would need to reshuffle it with the midweek Champions League fixtures now. A player with the bulldozing dribbling abilities of him could be very effective for Liverpool’s style of play who believe in drilling up at every opportunity.
Oxlade-Chamberlain has started each of Arsenal’s four games so far, this season and was involved in Liverpool’s 4-0 drubbing of the North London club. Arsenal were overtly poor then with the Reds’ midfield trio of Jordan Henderson, Emre Can and Georginio Wijnaldum dominating the game fully.
The player surely fancies himself in that position that really gives wings to his attacking attributes. However, his inconsistency remains a huge problem for Liverpool now and they have to eradicate that in the coming days. In the 198 appearances for Arsenal since he joined from Southampton in August 2011 as 17-year-old, Chamberlain could score only nine goals and provide eight assists.
While many would argue that Wenger hasn’t given him a fixed position all this while, his shot accuracy and passing accuracy remains hugely doubtful as it has never been even 50% accurate over the past five seasons. To top that, his injury history could be a problem too.
Chamberlain has experienced many long-term injuries at the club with two most notable being- the one in the 2013-14 season, when he missed a staggering 30 games with a knee injury, and then again in the 2015-16 season when he missed 13 games with similar injury problems.
