Arsenal’s Oxlade-Chamberlain: A Talent Worth Waiting For

There’s a tendency among football people, and I use the word “people” deliberately, to think we know a lot about the game.

It’s fair to say many of us do, from people who write about it for a living,  to those who go home and away each week, to those who follow digitally from all over the world. There is undoubtedly a wealth of knowledge. As in anything, some people have more knowledge than others. You don’t have to look very far for very stupid opinions. Equally, it’s hard not to avoid certain writers and pundits who say daft things—but have the benefit of being very well paid for it (unlike the bloke down the pub who is happy to spout nonsense for free).

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One of the things that does seem ever more prevalent though is the definitive judgement. It’s part of the media culture these days. Every match, every incident, every performance must tell us something. It doesn’t matter what, but something. Maybe, if you’re really lucky, it might even tell you five things you didn’t know before!

‘Ranieri continues to surprise with Leicester City’

What we’ve had some wonderful reminders of in the last 12 months or so, is how football can continue to surprise us, and take us places we assumed just weren’t possible anymore. Look at second-placed Leicester. After the appointment of Claudio Ranieri pundits and fans far and wide laughed and tipped them for relegation. Who’s laughing now?
What about a player who had been sent out on loan for the second successive season, and who seemed to be surplus to requirements at his current club, returning to make himself the anchorman of the midfield? Francis Coquelin taught us that even when the circumstances a player finds himself in suggest his career can only go in one direction, opportunity can knock when you least expect it.
It’s been a similar story this season for Joel Campbell. The door was opened because of injuries of various severity to Danny Welbeck, Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Jack Wilshere and Alexis Sanchez. He booted that door well and truly open, and his recent performances and form have put him ahead of Oxlade-Chamberlain and Walcott in the current pecking order.
It’s a lesson that even when a player’s career trajectory looks to be heading downwards, it can swoop upwards before any kind of crash landing. Which is why someone like Oxlade-Chamberlain ought to be afforded a bit more time before the definitive judgements come crashing in.
It’s fair to say his season hasn’t gone as well as he, or anyone else, would have liked. A brilliant goal won the Community Shield against Chelsea, but since then he’s really struggled for form. He’s finding even the basics difficult, and after the Stoke game he came in for some intense criticism online—and I say that in the full knowledge that this is not always the correct barometer with which to take a flavour of public opinion.

‘Thanks Petr’

Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see that despite examples like Coquelin, Campbell, and to an extent Nacho Monreal, who ousted Kieran Gibbs as the first choice left-back at Arsenal, there are so many who say with great conviction that’ll he’ll never be good enough.
We live a commentary culture that demands nothing less than perfection 100 percent of the time, so it’s understandable that Oxlade-Chamberlain’s performance have raised the hackles of some, but it’s also worth remembering that he’s just 22 years of age. Not all players develop at the same pace. For every 17-year-old Cesc Fabregas that can do it from those early stages, there’s a Didier Drogba who only really started doing it at the top level from 24.
The rest mostly follow a gradual curve of improvement. There are peaks and plateaus, dips and rises, and that looks the most likely explanation for the Ox right now. The talent and the raw ingredients are there, but at the moment he’s lacking confidence and that’s reflected in his performances.
There have been some positives signs in recent games though. There was some attacking ambition against Stoke, forcing a good save from Jack Butland, and he hit the post against Sunderland. Often it can take something to spark a player into life, to give them a little boost.
Hopefully he’ll have that moment soon, but until then a little patience for a young player with plenty of time on his side will probably be rewarded in the long-run.