Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has heaped praise on his new manager Jurgen Klopp for teaching him the basics of football, which he implies Arsene Wenger didn’t do.

During an interview with Liverpool’s official website, the Ox hailed his new boss at the club for teaching him a range of things, such as where to win the ball back and what his job is on the pitch.

The German even lets him shoot whenever he wants! What a guy. I bet he even lets the England international stay up past his bed time.

“If I’m coming off the bench he tells me my role first, he’ll say: ‘Make sure you help Alberto out and get back here and when we attack you’re an attacker, and when we defend you’re a proper midfielder,’” the 24-year-old gushed.

“I’ll say ‘yeah, no problem’. Then just before I go on he’ll tap me and go: ‘By the way, maybe it’s a good idea to shoot and score!’

“That’s always nice because I think a lot of managers will just concentrate on the things they want to make sure you do, whereas he’ll do that and then he’ll give you that license to go and have a bit of fun as well – to go and shoot and score and take people on, which is nice to hear for an attacking player like me.”

The Ox later added, “It doesn’t differ too much because the Premier League is the Premier League, so whatever club you’re at it’s always going to be demanding and there’s going to be a level of intensity demanded. 

“But this manager prides on those things, it’s pressing and counter-pressing and what areas he wants to win the ball back is more specific and I’ve had to learn those things a little bit, to what I’m used to.

“I think the other main thing is how positive he is and how he wants his players who are good at shooting, are good at dribbling, he pushes you to keep doing those things always. I think that maybe why you see our shooting stats are always quite high! 

“But it’s nice to see that from a manager, because some managers only want you to shoot when it’s maybe ‘right’, whereas this manager wants you to make the decision and whatever it is he deals with it, he’s happy with it, he encourages it.

“The only thing he’s not happy with is if you’re not working hard and running enough, and that’s fair enough – we hold our hands up and make sure we do that.”

It’s somewhat telling that Klopp has had to explain to the Ox where exactly he needs to win the ball back. You would think this was footballing 101 no matter where you play on the pitch but apparently the 24-year-old struggled.

Also, how is Klopp’s ‘shoot from wherever you want’ policy going? The Ox has scored just once in 11 Premier League appearances having had three shots – two of which were off-target.

Liverpool, meanwhile have taken the most shots in the Premier League – 250 – but currently sit level on goals scored (28) with Arsenal, despite the Gunners only having 237 shots [Edit – yes, we checked this stat, Arsenal really have had that many shots]. They also sit below Arsene Wenger’s side in the table by two points.

This just goes to show that despite Klopp wanting his players to have more ‘fun’ when they step out on the pitch, allowing his men to have more shots, at least in this instance, doesn’t seem to give Liverpool any sort of advantage over Wenger preferring his side not to waste their chances.