Klopp: Ox is a difference maker

Jurgen Klopp has revealed that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is back in full training as Liverpool’s injury crisis slowly eases.

The 27 year-old has had a injury interrupted four year stint at the Reds with two serious knee injuries and a series of muscle injuries restricting the midfielder to just 87 appearances during that period.

When he has been at the peak of his powers, Ox has been a major benefit for the manager with his direct running from midfield, creative instincts and eye for a goal.

The team has displayed a remarkable ability to keep performing despite the high level of absentees this season, but Klopp knows adding the quality of the England international to his matchday squad will be a big bonus.

The Official site reported the manager as saying:

“You don’t know you miss him because he is not there for a long time, but in the moment when he comes in and is in the gym with the players you think, ‘Oh god, right, it is much better when he is here!’ That is Ox.

“How I said, in the first few weeks the boys get all the help they need and from that moment on, especially with Ox, he is again an energy giver and doesn’t need too much energy from other people.”

Before his first serious knee injury at Liverpool in April 2018 which saw him on the sidelines for the best part of 12 months, Oxlade-Chamberlain was arguably playing the best football of his career and seemed a virtual lock for the World Cup squad.

When that desperately unfortunate moment happened in the Champions League semi final against Roma , it meant he had to virtually start from scratch. To Oxlade-Chamberlain's great credit, he was a tireless worker in his recovery and his reward was that he made 43 appearances in all competitions last season.

Klopp said that prior experience of bouncing back from setbacks will see the midfielder in good stead.

“I don’t understand these kind of discussions, to be honest, you have to be injured yourself once in a while to understand how difficult it is to find everything completely normal and natural again after that.

“It is good for my players that they had injuries so they know that. There is no time or no rush in it or whatever. In training, what Ox did so far, you see his quality immediately, immediately. He is a difference-maker, you can see that.

“How long you can do that in a game depends on your fitness level, which depends on the amount of sessions you had before, games you had before and all that stuff.

The big question when a player returns from a long term injury is whether they can return to their optimum level.

Klopp could not answer that for certain but knows that he can add a unique element to a already outstanding team.

“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.

“Ox is an outstanding player, an outstanding player. He was always and will always be. Did he play always perfectly well? No. But he had a few really good games and helped us a lot.

“The longer he can stay without injury, the better he will be. This time we are pretty confident he can do that until the end of his career.”

“I am just happy he is here again. The speed, the technique, the combination of both, right foot, left foot, can play different positions, played for us different positions, scored goals.

“When he is finally back - and I don’t know if this weekend will be the case or next weekend or a week later, I don’t know, we will see - then it is a big plus for us.”