By LUKE POWER, SPORTS REPORTER
Published: 09:44 EST, 10 December 2025 | Updated: 10:05 EST, 10 December 2025
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain insists he is ready to make a splash in the Premier League - just months after Turkish club Besiktas terminated his contract.
He is training with Arsenal's under-21s and has played in practice games against Watford and Manchester United.
The former Southampton, Gunners, and Liverpool star, now 32, is taking inspiration from two other English veterans who are enjoying a second wind in the top flight.
There's a sense of urgency about him, too. Oxlade-Chamberlain hopes to join a Premier League club in the coming weeks.
'I feel like I can add value on the pitch but also show the right way to train, the right way to act on and off the pitch,' he told The Athletic.
'I’m in the bracket now where I’ve been lucky enough to play for top clubs, win things and work with top managers. I know a lot more now than I did when I started out.'
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain says he is ready to 'add value' to a Premier League team soon
He says the likes of Danny Welbeck and James Milner at Brighton - you can throw Jordan Henderson at Brentford into the mix, too - prove that you can stil contribute well into your 30s.
'The perfect example. It shows you that, if you look after yourself and work hard, you can still be effective,' he said.
'And knowing Welbz, I just know the value that having him and James Milner — two very different characters — will bring to that dressing room in terms of the standards they set.
'In some aspects, I don’t feel any older than I did at Arsenal. I struggle to think of myself as 30. I’ve always thought you don’t retire before you’re 35, but I guess I’m into the business end of it now where you’ve got a lot more perspective on everything and you have a lot more reality thrown at you than when you’re 21.
'I want to play. I don’t feel old. I’m fit, and I’ve still got that hunger.'
Oxlade-Chamberlain boasts an impressive CV - his time at Liverpool brought him a Premier League title and a Champions League medal. There were also three FA Cup wins at Arsenal, spread across a dominant four years in the competition.
A 35-time England international, he has not featured for the Three Lions since 2019.
Things have not gone to plan since he left Liverpool in 2023. He suffered a long-term thigh injury in his first season at Besiktas and was frozen out by manager Giovanni van Brockhorst for the opening chunk of his second campaign in Turkey.
In August, two-thirds of the way through a three-year deal, he and Besiktas mutually agreed to terminate his contract.
He relates how the club's turmoil was an unsettling factor. In two years, he had nine managers. Not only that, but training times would constantly shift, game arrangements would change, and club chiefs were swapped in and out.
'The important thing for me was that I stayed professional, trained hard and made sure I was available when I was called upon,' he added. 'Thankfully, when Ole [Gunnar Solskjaer] came in, I was playing again. That was probably the most settled I felt over there.
'There were some really good moments and some not-so-good moments. I was ready to come home, but I’m glad I did it.'
In November it emerged that he was training at Arsenal's London Colney base.
He has been with the under-21s, regaining fitness under the tutelage of his former team-mate Per Mertesacker.
Oxlade-Chamberlain spent six years with the club from 2011 until 2017 before Liverpool signed him for £35million.
Has much changed?
'Everything has got bigger,' he said. Arsene [Wenger] kept his circle quite small and intimate. The number of people who worked around the players was small, whereas now the number of staff, the number of players, the way they do the nutrition and everything else, everything is bigger and has gone in that direction of being elite-level.
'It’s different, but straight away I could see everyone is singing from the same hymnsheet — staff and players — and the whole club is moulded in that one direction.'
More to follow.