The Daily Mail claim an "exclusive" in relation to the young Southampton starlet Alex Oxlade Chamberlain, who has been compared to Theo Walcott and is close to a £5 million move to Arsenal. Arsene Wenger has apparently had to move for the 17 year-old after he attracted interest from top Premier League clubs including Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool, and are now the favourites to sign the League 1 starlet because of the Gunners previous dealings involving Theo Walcott.
Chamberlains dad, Mark, a former footballer and winger himself, has worked with both Walcott and of course his son, and thinks - with probably a hint of bias, that his son is overall, the more gifted; ‘I’ve worked with both. As an all-round technical player Alex has more to offer.’
Liverpool had also been strongly linked to the young winger, as new manager Kenny Dalglish looks for support for under performing Fernando Torres. A figure of £10 million had been suggested, and that is the price that the buying club will probably, in the end have to pay, considering the amount of games he gets and so on. It seems a steep amount for such a young player who is unproven at the highest quality to me, but I'm sure I will be proved wrong.
Do Arsenal need Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain though? They have Walcott already, and both players play in the same position and from what I hear have pretty much the same qualities. They both started off at Southampton and both claim the one and two spot in the Southampton statistics of youngest appearance maker. Lets hope that the player, no matter if he does jump ship to Arsenal or not, can show the potential that his father, the Southampton coaching staff and scouts of Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal have all obviously see.
It has been said that Theo Walcott would have benefited from staying at Southampton a few seasons longer instead of jumping into such a higher League so soon, and that way, he may have gained more experience and made a bigger impact at Arsenal. Perhaps Arsenal, if the deal does go through should consider loaning Chamberlain back to Southampton or a Championship side for first team football.
