Oxlade-Chamberlain: Liverpool Had “The Right Intensity” VS Maribor

While gushing about Liverpool’s 7-0 Kaiju-esque dismantling of Maribor in the Champions League on Tuesday night, manager Jurgen Klopp took a few moments to shout out Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. The England winger, who signed with Liverpool this past summer from Arsenal, came off the bench in last night’s clash and put in a stellar performance, culminating in the sixth of Liverpool’s seven goals.

Speaking to BT Sport following the game, Oxlade-Chamberlain said that he’s mostly just grateful for the opportunity.

“It’s a competitive team that I’ve come in to. We’re in an important part of the season where we want to get off to a good start and we’ve got a few results that haven’t gone our way. Everyone’s fighting for their place and I’m just ready for when I get the opportunity, like tonight. I need to keep developing and learning a new style of play here and get used to that and then whenever I get my opportunities, try to do as well as I can.”

Ox also said that the team was able to pull off this demolition job because they synced up with what Klopp expects them to do.

“I think we started with the right intensity. The manager said when we come to these places it’ll be a tough game, we can’t be complacent, we need to give them 100 per cent effort and I think the boys did that right from the off. Even at half-time he was still pushing for us to do better and react again because we thought they’d come out and give it a good go, so the boys reacted really well again after half-time and ultimately we got everything we deserved.”

He also said that Liverpool needs to have more days like this, and that the key lies in finishing their chances.

“More to the point we were more clinical today, putting away all our chances, or near enough all of them. Every week it feels like we’ve got a lot of goals in us and it’s just not clicking right at the final moment. I think we create a lot of opportunities and I hear people saying the stats are always Liverpool have 20 shots a game, so if we keep doing those things - that’s the important thing, that we keep creating chances and keep trying and hopefully it’ll come off for us and tonight they did.”

So yes, more results like last night and more performances from Ox like that. Bob’s your uncle.