Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has revealed he was picked on by Emmanuel Frimpong before joining Arsenal.
The England international came through the ranks at Southmapton before joining the Gunners at the age of 17. He revealed at younger age groups he and his teammates at Saints would not look forward to playing against Arsenal.
“That was the thing we all dreaded the most, was playing Arsenal at 10-years-old. We would turn up and they were 6ft 2in already. Chuks Aneke was just bullying me, Nico Yennaris was just bullying – who else – Benik Afobe just scoring 20 goals a game. It was horrible,” Oxlade-Chamberlain told the Arsenal podcast.
“I remember Under-9s, think we lost 12-1. Under-10s, again, we got pumped about 10 or 11-0.
“At Under-11s my dad was the coach and we thought we’d cracked the code didn’t we. We went 2-0 up and we thought we’d cracked the code. We thought we’d cracked the Arsenal code and then we lost 12-2.”
However, the 23-year-old and his teammates began to develop and mature and Oxlade-Chamberlain remembers that they finally beat the Gunners 3-2 at Under-14s level.
The winger or midfielder and a couple of his teammates clashed with Arsenal and Frimpong once more at a youth tournament a couple of days later but this time off the field.
Oxlade-Chamberlain added: “We were in the games room and I remember Arsenal bowled in and we were like ‘oh no’. It was like something from a film, we all just crumbled, ‘we’re going to get moved here’.
“Emmanuel Frimpong burst through the door and it was the first time I’d come into contract with Frimmy. It was me and another lad on the Playstation and he came over and he’s like ‘what are you doing?’
“We were like ‘yes Mr Frimpong, just playing on the Playstation’. He was like, ‘nah, get off’.
“Frimmy’s looking like a grown man and I’m like so under-developed it’s untrue, I’m like a little boy. So I’m like ‘cool, here’s the Playstation’.
“Then a couple of the other Arsenal boys were like ‘no Frimmy, they’re cool, leave them’. He was like ‘what do you mean they’re cool?’ and they say ‘they beat us 3-2 last week’ and Frimmy was like ‘you let them beat you 3-2?’”
Southampton’s recent victory over Arsenal seemed enough to gain the respect of Frimpong.
“Frimmy was like ‘ok cool, you can stay with us’. I was like, ‘boys, we’ve made it – the Arsenal boys think we’re the boys!’ We were buzzing.” said the Portsmouth-born star.
Oxlade-Chamberlain and Frimpong went on to become close teammates at the Emirates Stadium for three years, but did not play together much for the first-team as Frimpong was continuously sent out on loan before signing for Barnsley in 2014. The Ghana international now plays his trade for Arsenal Tula in the Russian Premier League.
By Drew Darbyshire (@DarbySports)
