‘Always telling me’ - Oxlade-Chamberlain names Liverpool signing Trent Alexander-Arnold raves about

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain insisted that his time at Liverpool did not end on a sour note.

The midfielder was released by the Reds at the end of his contract in June. Oxlade-Chamberlain moved to Anfield from Arsenal for £35 million in the summer of 2017. However, despite winning six major trophies - including the Premier League and Champions League - his Liverpool career stuttered because of injury. In total, he was restricted to 146 appearances, scoring 18 goals.

Oxlade-Chamberlain wasn’t the only engine-room operator to be offloaded in the summer transfer window, though. Naby Keita was released while James Milner turned down a new deal before Jordan Henderson and Fabinho were sold to Al-Ettifaq and Al-Ittihad respectively.

Liverpool recruited Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister, Ryan Gravenberch and Wataru Endo and have made a fine start to the 2023-24 season. They sit fourth in the Premier League table, with their only loss coming against Tottenham in a game shrouded in VAR controversy.

Oxlade-Chamberlain opted to join Turkish side Besiktas for a new challenge. He still keeps in touch with his ex-Anfield team-mates, with Trent Alexander-Arnold raving about the impact Szoboszlai has had.

Speaking to The Athletic, Oxlade-Chamberlain said: “Trent is always telling me how good he [Szoboszlai] is, telling me he’s got a better shot than me. Alexis Mac Allister, too, you can see his quality. A different type of No.6 to Fabinho, but it’s the way the team has been evolving the last couple of years with Thiago, Harvey Elliott, Curtis Jones. It’s a different style from when I first went there when it was less possession-based and more chaos. Really good.

“The longer I play the game, the more I realise you’re just an entity in the grand scheme of a business really. There will be many more after us and there were many more before, people who have had great experiences. I had great, great times at Liverpool. I couldn’t say anything bad about my time there. I wouldn’t even say it ended badly. At the end of the day, the club is bigger than any one player. Sometimes there’s bigger fish to fry.”