Arsenal’s Oxlade-Chamberlain: Young Midfield Pair Made Me Play Better

By The Editor
on 29th January 2017

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain reserves praise for young duo…

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Arsenal star Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain praised his young midfield partners Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Jeff Reine-Adelaide after our 5-0 thrashing of Southampton in the FA Cup fourth round.

Travelling to Southampton has proven to be a tricky task over the past few years, having not left St Mary’s with a win for more than a decade.

However, while Wenger rung the changes for the cup as the likes of Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez were left out of the starting XI, we produced a solid performance.

Southampton, still reeling from their EFL Cup final loss to Manchester United, didn’t seem capable of lifting themselves for another big game.

The Ox, highly regarded as the man of the match, played in a midfield three alongside the young duo and he wanted to reserve praise for their performances.

“Obviously the midfielders were shuffled up a lot and we had a big responsibility today,” he told Arsenal Player.

“Southampton are always strong in there so I thought the two young boys, Ainsley and Jeff, did really well beside me.

“We set the pace from the start and we controlled it at times. And when they controlled it in midfield, I thought we sat back, we were compact and we kept a good shape and we saw them out until half-time and then we pushed on from there.”