Focus on Ox at The Emirates today

[PHOTO: COURTESY]

Arsenal’s transfer market policy will come under fresh scrutiny when Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain returns to his former club with Liverpool in the Premier League today.

Arsene Wenger reluctantly sold the 24-year-old for 35 million pounds earlier this season after Oxlade-Chamberlain refused two offers of a new contract.

While not all Arsenal supporters were unhappy to see the player leave after struggles with fitness and form, his recasting by Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp as a tenacious midfielder primed to spring forward at every opportunity has shown his potential and added fuel to the argument that Arsenal do not offer their top talent sufficient incentives to stay.

“He’s like a wonderful package,” said Klopp of Oxlade-Chamberlain. “It’s only just the beginning and I really like it,” he told the Liverpool website (www.liverpoolfc.com).

After a difficult start, in which he made his debut with Liverpool 2-0 down and reduced to 10 men at Manchester City, Oxlade-Chamberlain has now made 20 appearances, starting four of the past seven league games.

Last time Liverpool and Arsenal met, at Anfield in August, Oxlade-Chamberlain was still playing wing back under Wenger when the Frenchman failed to come up with a strategy to stem the Reds’ free-flowing attack in the 4-0 defeat.

Now, Oxlade-Chamberlain forms another dimension of the same problem for Wenger, with his return also disruptive on another front.

Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez are both following their former team mate’s example by ticking down their contracts after declining new deals. So, the England midfielder’s first trip back to the Emirates Stadium where he played for six years provides Wenger with what could be an uncomfortable glimpse of the future as former players return to haunt him.

British media are consistently linking Ozil with a move to Manchester United and Sanchez with an exit to either Paris St. Germain or Manchester City. Former Arsenal striker Ian Wright added to the pressure on Arsenal’s management this week by suggesting that to let such players depart would represent “disgusting business”.

More immediately, Wenger’s concern will be coping without Olivier Giroud, his Plan B striker who has scored 10 goals in the final 10 minutes of games in 2017 but who now faces weeks out with a hamstring injury.