Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has hailed Arsene Wenger’s philosophy and praised how focussed the manager is.

Speaking to the Telegraph, the midfielder was full of admiration for the boss. Wenger’s philosophy isn’t always something that many players have understood, nor agreed with, but the 21-year-old seems completely on board with what he says Wenger believes is the ‘bigger picture‘.

“He always seems like he’s got a bigger picture, a bigger plan,” Oxlade-Chamberlain says. “Not just for individuals but for his team as well. It’s credit to him and the way he has managed with the young talent. And he continues to do it. You saw in the Emirates Cup – there was Jeff Reine-Adelaide, who is 17 but it was like he could already play with us week in, week out.”

He continued, “He [Wenger] is very focused in his beliefs and that’s the best thing. If you believe in something and work on it for enough hours then it should just become clockwork. You should not have to think about it too much and you understand what’s expected. So he has laid down what is expected and we have to keep practising that on and off the pitch. We all buy into it and the best chance of success for us is to focus on that.”

The youngster obviously sees big things in Arsenal’s future and attributes a lot of this to the manager. Sticking to what he believes in has cost Wenger in the past, with players leaving, impatiently wanting to lift silverware. However, for those who have stood by him and to the new signings we were always told we would make, the payoff will be winning the more trophies.

Of course, a huge part of being successful in the Premier League is keeping our squad fit, something we’ve battled with in the past, with the Ox unfortunately spending huge amounts of time sidelined.

“All of a sudden you have niggles, muscle injuries that you never used to have before,” he said. “They were all a consequence of that [knee injury]. I also learnt a lot from that period – that something can happen in a blink of an eye in this game. That you have to look after yourself a lot more.”