Martin O’neill reveals he is in talks with Alex Oxlade-chamberlain
Celtic brought in five loanees before the winter transfer window closed on Monday night – but they are not done yet.
There is a glint in Celtic manager Martin O’neill’s eye when he talks about his final target. England internationalist Alex Oxlade-chamberlain is currently a free agent and training with Arsenal. The Glasgow side have approached him over a move north. O’neill himself has spoken to the 32-year-old as he tries to persuade him his short-term future lies in Scotland.
Oxlade-chamberlain has been capped 35 times by England. He was one of Europe’s wonderkids when he broke through at Southampton and spent many years at Arsenal and Liverpool, winning 11 trophies in total – including the Premier League and the Champions League. More recently he was in Turkey with Besiktas, but has since been back at the Gunners, training with Mikel Arteta’s squad.
O’neill accepts that Oxladechamberlain will have other offers. Arsenal are said to be mulling over a proposal to reinforce their midfield options. He has a young family and may want to live closer to London. But Celtic have the gift of O’neill’s gab – plus one of his former England team-mates is Joe Hart, a former Parkhead keeper who has made Oxladechamberlain aware of the positives of joining Celtic.
“I have spoken to him,” said O’neill. “I had a look at what he was doing in Turkey and it was fine. He was playing in a more withdrawn role, I think Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was out there and asked if he would help in that sort of position.
“You don’t lose ability. You might lose a bit of hunger, but he was definitely up for it. He was up for a challenge. At 32 years of age he’s still got it.
“He will have other options. He is training at Arsenal and Arsenal have had a few injuries so they might even take him on. But he knew about the club, he had spoken to Joe Hart, that was just by chance or a coincidence. I’m not saying he spoke to Joe Hart two days ago, it might have been months ago. But it was fine. He lives down in London.”
O’neill clearly knows where Oxlade-chamberlain, who broke through as a winger, would fit into his team.
“He could play midfield for us, easily,” continued the manager. “Is he one of those players who could go past the players on the outside, wide, I wouldn’t be sure. But he could do a job. When I signed James Milner from Newcastle to Aston Villa James was wide right-hand side and I know that position very well because I played it and I knew falls and the concerns you have out there when you’re wide, taking someone on, looking for a bit of help to play one-twos and stuff but James could play there.”
O’neill was asked if wages are a dealbreaker. “No it’s not the money,” he replied. Is there a timescale? “I really left it. I didn’t progress any further, yet. It’s only 24, 36 hours ago.”
In typical self-deprecating fashion, O’neill added: “I think he had heard of me. Maybe his grandad told him about me.”
O’neill has experience of luring players to Celtic from his first spell in charge of the club. He drew parallels to when Welsh striker Craig Bellamy moved on loan for the second half of the 200/05 campaign from Newcastle. “Would he be a Craig Bellamy of years ago?” he smiled. “Bellamy’s still talked about now. People still send messages about ‘why did he not sign permanently’. Well, because he didn’t want to come permanently! That’s the whole point!”
Bellamy may return as manager. That is for another day. “If you can get a player of that sort of calibre that would be great,” O’neill closed on Oxladechamberlain. “It would be really great. But I can understand that there are lots of other things around there. Arsenal too. Listen, if we were even on a close list that would be fine.
“If it doesn’t materialise we have good players in here at this minute. But I’d love to have him at the end of the day. I think in time getting into matchday mode, I don’t think that would be a major problem.”
One player who is in O’neill’s ranks is Arne Engels after Nottingham Forest failed with three bids, the largest being close to £25 million, on deadline day. The manager was pleased his board stood firm despite such large amounts of money being on offer.
“The things were coming in and the board were keeping me informed,” explained O’neill. “But they never came to me and said ‘what are your thoughts’. I just assumed they wouldknowwhatmythoughts were. It’s difficult to turn that down and also it’s something the player would at least double or treble his wages. But he seemed bright enough and breezy this morning.
“We all talk about statements from clubs and half the time I don’t believe it but I do think it is, because that’s big. To turn down that at this stage in January is really, really big. The consequences of that is really big. I never asked how they were making it up but let’s say it was £20m with £5m added-on and that was attainable, you’re talking about £25m and that is big.”
O’neill is glad that the window is now firmly shut. It could be his last one. “We had a meeting in this very room here about half-past ten, quarter to eleven,” he said. “And it's just nice, the boys are in the room now, competition for places, a bit of a battle on, which is good for a start. And two, people can’t do anything now until the summer. So that's it. And it's a bit of a relief for me in that aspect. New set of questions then next week!”