I'm getting so frustrated with The Ox. He has so many good qualities and shows so much potential but then never seems to play to the level we require of him. He still severely lacks end product, is defensively questionable and today when he came on was totally ineffective, giving away silly fouls repeatedly. For some reason I've always found him slightly frustrating but recently it's really getting on my nerves. While several other players appear to be stepping up, he is always a player that makes me feel let down. I know he is still young and has time to come good in his career but I wish we had someone different in his place at the moment. Welbeck and Perez being available would be good, it's a shame they are injured. And I think I'd rather have Wilshere or Campbell playing instead of him currently. Maybe he needs a loan move? I hope he proves me wrong and makes a real contribution this season but he is probably the most obvious weakness in our squad currently in my opinion. What do you think of him? How do you think he is playing? What would you do about the Oxocube conundrum?
It's clear he has talent and has a well rounded skillset, but he fails to maintain any consistency that is important with playing at the highest level. I wouldn't be in a rush to sell him but he isn't good enough to play for our first 11 at the moment. I would suggest a loan move and take it from there. Wilshere is on loan at the moment and is doing fairly well. This is the only realistic way of working out whether these two are good enough to play for Arsenal's first 11 and not making up the numbers. You mentioned Welbeck and he is one player that we've missed. His workrate, tracking back, speed, strength and tenacity is a real asset for us. Against Spurs he would have been good. He always puts in a shift.
'Talent' is a very vague term to use. Most players at every club in the premier league have some 'talent' at football or they wouldn't be being paid thousands a week to play for them. Sufficient talent to play for a title challenging club should be a more appropriate term to use to describe someone who is being paid by Arsenal. Is it clear he has that level of talent? Really? When has that been clear? For someone who plays in one of the front 3 positions, he's only ever scored 8 league goals in 108 games in what is now his sixth full season with us. That's atrocious. A sixth of all his goals he has ever scored for us have come in two league cup games this year. He doesn't assist a great deal either so you have to question what he actually offers for an attacker. Saying he needs more of a chance to show his worth is also debatable. He's had six years and hasn't done so. If we gave him until he was 33 and he then gave us one season of worth would you say that was a sensible amount of time to wait? He is deadwood and should be sold and has not progressed since he joined us. Especially at the moment when we have such a huge squad with some players not even making our match day squad of 18 players. Gnabry and/or Campbell should be at our club right now, not Oxlade. If AFCFTW questions the worth of a player then you know that said player is absolute garbage as he normally sticks by all our players saying their amazing. So being questioned by AFCFTW is a telling sign. And also... is Wilshere really doing 'fairly well'? Anymore so than other midfielders at Bournemouth? I haven't really noticed him stand out at Bournemouth when I've watched bits of their games which is slightly disappointing for the long term for us as it suggests he's not actually that good.
Maybe I was being kind to Oxo but obviously Wenger sees something in him worth keeping over Gnabry and Campbell. Do I agree with that, no, as I think both would do better. Oxo and Wilshere do benefit from being English and I wonder if they are in the squad to promote shirt sales and homegrown quotas. As for referring to his talent, in my opinion he has shown flashes of high end ability but rarely manages to maintain it.
I wish we had kept Campbell in the squad and sent out Oxo on loan. Chamberlain has all the ability but mentally he's just not with it. He makes soo many bad decisions.
He's mentally fragile. I would look into a psychologist for him. He seems to have issues with self confidence. He has the tools to be a lethal footballer.
I believe we had this same thread before his last big injury and nothing really seems to have changed since then, he's been with us a long time and I'm not sure he's a much better player than when he joined. That game against Milan seems like a very long time ago now..
He's ****. I'm sorry.. He has pace and ability but it doesnt count for anything because he plays like a guy who couldn't give a toss. He's basically another Adam Johnson, Joe Cole, Aaron Lennon, Townsend etc.. We kept him over the likes of Gnabry and Campbell because he's English, he's a character and seems a very established squad member. 4 goals will be his best return for us in what 7 years?! .. Lets be honest he wouldn't make any of the Big European Clubs squads. When you look at the Top guys in his position you are looking at players who get 20+ goals a Season from that position. (Greizmann, Reis, Hazard, De Bruyne, Bale, Sanchez etc..) Its about time he delivered or was sold. We should be putting ALOT more pressure on these players.
You can't argue with that. Selling Campbell and Gnabry and keeping the likes of Oxo is baffling. Is it down to that homegrown rule?
LEAGUE stats for Oxo, Gnarbry and Campbell this year: Oxo - played 9, 1 goal and 1 assist Gnarbry - played 9, 4 goals and 1 assist Campbell - played 6, 3 goals and 1 assist Oxo's return has been **** this year. 9 games and only 1 goal and 1 assist playing with Ozil, Cazorla, Walcott and Sanchez all on form. You can only assume that the other two would have done better, because they are BETTER! How the hell did Oxo stay when the others got shipped out. STRANGE.
Oxo has the worst stats ever. It's funny that players like Gervinho were labelled flops but in reality they did better than Oxo has.
How does OXO go under the radar so much. Agree with you on Gervinho, he played in a worse team yet did so much better but is labelled as crap.
Because you guys love a young english player who you paid a lot of money for. Plus he does good youtube videos and he seems like a lad. Same with wilshit. Both overrated, both very talented but bother absolutely braindead. Whether that is lack of experience or just being unintelligent footballers. I notice wilshit hasn't done much at bournemouth so far except miss a few sitters and setup city for their romping at bournemouth. No idea why you got rid of Gnarbry who wasn't really give a chance at all and smashed a hat trick (albeit against a small waste of qualification minnows) and i really feel for joel campbell. He came in last season, injected some energy, looked tricky, worked hard, was skillful and direct, has been loaned out about 50 times and still waited for his chance at arsenal only to be shipped off. To be fair he hasn't been starting much for lisbon but whenever he comes on he seems to score.
Wilshere is different. Wilshere's progress has been hindered by a lot of injuries. (actually think he's done Ok at Bournemouth soo far). Chamberlain though has had every chance to succeed. Also Gnabry isn't at Lisbon, he is at Bremen. That's Joel Campbell you are thinking of. On that front I agree he should never have been loaned out. Thought he was excellent last Season.
I think you might have misread my post. I started off with Gnarbry then i went onto talk abou joel campbell. I know campbell has gone to lisbon as i make a killing on him bagging goals on in play betting (i say make a killing, only have done it twice and he's come good twice). I think Ox has had quite a lot of injuries too although admittedly slightly less than jack. Jack is pretty good at short range passing (actually think his long range passing is overrated), has a great low centre of gravity and can ghost pass players and his visions actually not bad. However where he's pretty poor is his decision making (holding onto the ball, thinking he can take someone on all the time admittedly i haven't watched him at bournemouth just MOTD), he's lightweight (not his fault really) and although i'm obviously exaggerating when he call him ****, he's not a top 4 player yet and his biggest issue is he doesn't know how to play any set midfield role yet. He's not good enough to be where ozil is, he's not disciplined or defensive minded enough to be a dm and i don't think he has the energy to be a CM. Maybe he will improve but i don't think he has the attitude or the brains to make it as a top class player regardless of how the media rave about his technical ability. The Ox i think suffers from being too confident. Theres an arrogance about his game i feel and he tries too hard trying to take everyone on. Not sure how he's going to make it. Maybe he moved too early but he needs games right now which he won't get at Arsenal. Surprised he hasn't been loaned out to be honest.
Ox ( just like Szczeshy) is a curious case of a player who tends to switch from lack of confidence to arrogance and back skipping all intermediate states.
Respect for Ox for that cross against Utd. He gets a lot of stick for his 'final ball', so he deserves credit for putting that one on a plate for Giroud yesterday.
