Jurgen Klopp has hailed Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain despite barely using the Liverpool midfielder in recent weeks – including in the win at Southampton.
Liverpool heavily rotated their squad for Tuesday’s trip to Southampton.
Liverpool’s key players have been taking on an enormous workload of late as the Reds chase a quadruple.
The key final game of the season is this weekend and then Liverpool head into playing Real Madrid in the Champions League final.
Klopp’s men did fall behind at Southampton as Nathan Redmond scored against a side lacking the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Andrew Robertson, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah.
Liverpool roared back though, equalising through Takumi Minamino before Joel Matip won it with an instinctive header.
It’s now down to the final day, with Liverpool needing a favour from Aston Villa against Manchester City.
Jurgen Klopp has hailed Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Even with Klopp rotating his squad, midfielder Oxlade-Chamberlain still didn’t get a single minute on the pitch.
Klopp went with James Milner, Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott as his midfield three before Naby Keita and Jordan Henderson came on.
Oxlade-Chamberlain once again sat kicking his heels on the bench.
The 28-year-old hasn’t kicked a ball since being substituted in the FA Cup win over Nottingham Forest on March 20th.
That’s almost two months without football even with Liverpool going for so many trophies and rotating their side.
It seems clear that Oxlade-Chamberlain – who cost around £35million back in 2017 – isn’t in the Liverpool plans right now.
Newcastle United are understood to be keen and attempted a January move according to reports.
Klopp has actually praised Oxlade-Chamberlain though, making comments after the win over Southampton.
Speaking to The Guardian, Klopp stated that Oxlade-Chamberlain is in ‘outstanding shape’ even though he didn’t get on the pitch.
The praise is nice, but Oxlade-Chamberlain clearly needs to move this summer for the sake of his own career.
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