Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has been playing through pain over the last two seasons after a knee ligament injury on the opening day of the 2013/14 season. Oxlade-Chamberlain has never appeared in more than 25 league games in a season for Arsenal since joining in 2011, and he says many of those injuries were due to the challenge received from Aston Villa's Antonio Luna.
"It was a knock-on effect from the cruciate injury that I had from the first day of the season a couple of years ago when we lost to Villa. It’s all been a chain reaction from that, just being out for five or six months for the first time in your life. I’d never been out, not playing or running around, for that long with my knee in a brace.
Your balance can shift when that happens and you start loading more on one side than the other, that’s when the muscle problems creep in. It ended up in my groin from the compensation and I struggled with that for a large part of last season. I didn’t know what was wrong but just felt the pain in my groin. Nothing was showing on the scans and it was just the strength from the groin and abdominal region.
It was a massive strain. The fact is the injury changed my body slightly, and the way my muscles and body react to playing as many games as we do. But, so far this season, I’ve felt good. It’s been a while since I felt pain-free like that. It’s a big burden off me that I can play with that freedom and I’m not playing in pain."
Oxlade-Chamberlain has started the new season brightly, scoring the winner in the Community Shield and impressing against Newcastle United.
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