Why Klopp is not losing faith in injury-hit Oxlade-chamberlain

Manager remains eager to find place in side for versatile attacking midfielder if he can stay off the treatment table

There could be a lonely hearts club of discarded England players forming at Liverpool’s training ground this summer. While the fallout of Trent Alexander-arnold’s recent omission continues, Alex Oxlade-chamberlain’s predicament is summed up by the fact no one is championing his prospects of an unlikely late push to make this summer’s Euros.

Not so long ago the attacking midfielder was not a candidate; he was a shoo-in.

“I don’t think I’d be telling secrets to say that we expected him to come to the World Cup with us [in 2018] and, at that stage, he was likely to be starting in the team,” Gareth Southgate, the England manager, said last season.

With respect to lingering international ambitions, Oxlade-chamberlain prepares to face former club Arsenal today knowing re-establishing a role at Liverpool is his immediate priority.

Not for the first time, injury has been Oxlade-chamberlain’s spoiler. For the past two years he has been fighting against the discourse that the cruciate knee operation he underwent after the 2018 Champions League semi-final against Roma will define his time on Merseyside. The fight to change the conversation is ongoing.

Part of the problem is that Oxladechamberlain

has been unable to secure a clearly defined role. In April 2018, he was developing into a smart, dynamic No8, one of Klopp’s central three.

Since his year out he has been of no fixed abode, often in the front three, occasionally deeper. Against Wolverhampton Wanderers during Liverpool’s last Premier League victory, he delivered a sharp eight-minute cameo as a No9. Klopp’s reaction was purposefully enthusiastic.

“He can do that,” Klopp said. “He did that earlier in the season against West Ham as well, when he came on in that position and did really well.

“It’s an option. Ox is obviously a versatile player and definitely more offensively oriented, and it’s a very offensive position for him with the speed, technique, the moves and turns. He is able to do the acceleration. It’s a good position.

“He hasn’t played there 500 times obviously. But we know that it can be good for him, and that’s why he came on at Wolves. He was impressive. Even though it was three weeks ago, it was good.”

Klopp’s admiration for the player and the man means there is no shortage of support and patience.

There was no greater proof of it than when extending Oxladechamberlain’s contract until 2023 even though he had played only 19 minutes in the previous 12 months.

The number of starts Oxladechamberlain made last season further underlined how eager Klopp was to accommodate him. Ask Klopp about the prospects of the man he always refers to as Ox and there is no appetite to indulge any implication that time is against the 27-year-old.

“Being in the best moment of your career and being compared with that after coming back from an injury, that’s a really dumb thing to do. ‘Oh, he’s not that good anymore …’ I have no time for that,” Klopp said recently.

But injury was again the disrupter at the start of this season, keeping the midfielder out until Christmas. He has made only two starts in his 12 Premier League appearances.

Given Liverpool’s troubles, it is even tougher for the coach to grant a player returning from long-term injury a streak of 10 successive games to get up to speed, even when established middlemen such as Fabinho and Jordan Henderson have been in defence or absent.

The arrival of Thiago Alcantara, emergence of Curtis Jones and enduring belief of Liverpool’s coaching staff that Naby Keita will one day put his injury toils to one side, mean the competition will not diminish, even if Georginio Wijnaldum’s departure creates a vacancy.

For the past two summers, the next pre-season has been billed as critical to Oxlade-chamberlain’s long-term aspirations of being a fixture in Klopp’s first-choice starting XI. The same must be said of 2021.

Maybe then he can swerve forgotten-man status and rejoin the England conversation in time for the 2022 World Cup.