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Oxlade-Chamberlain: ‘I must be patient for first team chances at Liverpool’

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain celebrates after scoring the sixth goal during Liverpool’s Champions League defeat of Maribor on Tuesday.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has said he must be patient for first-team opportunities at Liverpool as he is still developing and adapting to Jürgen Klopp’s methods.

The England international scored his first goal for Liverpool since a £40m deadline day move from Arsenal in Tuesday’s 7-0 Champions League rout of Maribor. The strike, which Klopp claimed would lift the midfielder’s confidence and “open his chest”, followed an impressive substitute’s display against Manchester United on Saturday.

Oxlade-Chamberlain, however, has made only one start under Klopp – the Carabao Cup defeat at Leicester City – with the manager saying a training schedule interrupted by international breaks has not helped the deadline-day signing to adapt. The 24-year-old accepts he must bide his time to impress at Anfield.

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“It’s a competitive team that I’ve come in to,” said Oxlade-Chamberlain. “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. 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.”

Liverpool had endured a frustrating run of one win in eight matches before recording their biggest European away victory in Slovenia, with results not reflecting the level of often dominant performances. But everything “clicked” in Maribor, according to Oxlade-Chamberlain.

He added: “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% 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.

“More to the point we were more clinical, 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 against Maribor they did.”