Martin O'Neill confirms Celtic transfer interest in former Arsenal and Liverpool star Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain as talks held
Martin O'Neill has confirmed his interest in bringing former Arsenal and Liverpool attacker Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to Celtic with talks currently ongoing.
The former England international has been without a club since mutually agreeing to terminate his contract with Besiktas in August, but has been training back in North London with the Gunners in recent months to build up his fitness levels.
A three-time FA Cup winner with Arsenal between 2013 and 2017, Oxlade-Chamberlain’s CV makes for impressive reading. He also lifted the English Premier League title with Liverpool in season 2019/20 and was a member of the Reds squad that won the Champions League in 2018/19, despite being an unused substitute in the 2-0 win over Tottenham in the final.
The last of his 35 caps for the Three Lions came back in 2019. He moved to Turkey in August 2023 upon the expiry of his contract at Anfield after injuries restricted his game time. During his spell at Besiktas, he scored five goals in 50 appearances and won the Turkish Cup in 2024.
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain ‘very excited’ about what he’s heard on potential Celtic transfer
Now searching for his next club, O’Neill admits he would be keen to add the vastly experienced 32-year-old to his squad outside the transfer window and revealed that discussions have already taken place, with the player said to be “very excited” about their conversation.
“I do like him,” O’Neill confessed during his press conference today ahead of Celtic’s midweek trip to Aberdeen in the Scottish Premiership. “He has been training at Arsenal for some time since his time in Turkey.
“I spoken to him, yeah. But I mean, I’m sure he'll have lots of options, some closer to London as well too. I would be very interested in doing it (a deal) but as I said, I'm surprised that teams haven't already teed him up closer to the area.
“As I said, he’s telling me he’d been training with Arsenal for quite some considerable time. So in terms of fitness, it’s not match fitness, but we’ll see. He’s got loads of options.
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“I think he was very excited about what we were saying. Listen, he knows about the football club, he’s a big friend of Joe Hart and he speaks to him, not on our behalf. That was a conversation he had with Joe.
“But it’s fine, it’s something that would be interesting. If it doesn’t materialise, it doesn’t materialise.”
Martin O’Neill sums up January transfer business after several near-misses
Factoring in the earlier arrivals of Julian Araujo from AFC Bournemouth and Tomas Cvancara from Borussia Monchengladbach, the Scottish champions ended the window with five loan deals.
Asked if he could understand why some supporters have been left frustrated the club haven’t spent any money on transfer fees, O’Neill replied: “Well, I just get back to the point that I’ve said to you here for the last three or four weeks.
“We had for instance, a deal set up with Frosinone for the lad coming in (Fares Ghedjemis) and he chose to stay. That’s entirely his decision to make. He wanted to see if Frosinone can get into Serie A, so that’s it.
“Those things happen. They happen in the game. It happens from the 1st of January, it happens on the 24th and it happens later on. So that does happen, it’s happened every single time.
“You can have things set up. You can be thwarted, as I said. Some players that we were in for have gone for, I wouldn’t call bigger clubs, but probably pretty big money and stuff like that.”
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