Official: Arsenal sign Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

Arsenal Football Club is delighted to announce that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has joined the Gunners on a long-term contract for an undisclosed fee.

Oxlade-Chamberlain, 17, joins Arsenal from Championship side Southampton, where he made 44 first-team appearances during his long association with the south coast club.

Joining the Southampton Academy at the age of seven, Alex quickly excelled through the ranks of the club's successful youth set-up, making his first team debut in March 2010 at the age of just 16 years and 199 days. In doing so, Alex became the second youngest ever appearance maker for Southampton after Theo Walcott.

A quick, attacking player, Oxlade-Chamberlain played an integral role in Southampton's promotion campaign from League One in 2010/11, making 41 appearances and scoring 10 goals in the season. His impressive performances earned him a place in the PFA League One Team of the Year 2010/2011, voted by his fellow professionals.

Alex, who can operate on either wing or as an attacking central midfielder, has also represented England at Under-18, Under-19 and Under-21 levels.

After sealing the deal to bring the young prospect to Emirates Stadium, Arsène Wenger said: "We are delighted that Alex has decided to join us.

"He is an exciting young player who will provide us with creativity and offensive quality. Alex is a versatile player who can play in a number of positions. He can play as an attacking centre midfielder, or wide left and right.

"Alex is a perceptive passer of the ball and has a great understanding of the game and looks to be a very good team player."

Wenger continued: "Alex has done extremely well during his development with Southampton and we are looking forward to him progressing even further and fulfilling his huge potential with Arsenal Football Club."

Oxlade-Chamberlain, who celebrates his 18th birthday next Monday, said: "I'm so excited to be joining Arsenal. It's a fantastic club and I'm really looking forward to the opportunity of playing football at the highest level.

"Arsenal have a great manager in Arsène Wenger, top quality players and an attractive style of play. These were all important factors in me choosing to sign for Arsenal.

"I'm proud to be joining Arsenal, but I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone at Southampton for their help and support during the early part of my career, for which I will always be grateful."

Alex concluded: "I'm now looking forward to meeting all my new team mates and giving absolutely everything in an Arsenal shirt."

Alex will go into the Arsenal first-team squad and immediately start training at London Colney in readiness for the start of the new season.

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/arsenal-sign-oxlade-chamberlain

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If we're to believe the various reported, the fee is a structured £15mil; £7mil up front, £5mil in add-ons and £3mil in bonuses. Other people say it's £12mil up front, £3mil bonues. In any case, it's totally to £15mil.

Beat me to it Jay

Good signing as long as cb comes in

"go into the first-team squad"?

I'll probably root for him once he develops. In my opinion, he just joins an already huge pool of young talent that we have. And 'first team' is a big step. Very big step. I wonder how our youth graduates and reserves would feel if someone younger and less proven than them walks into the first team. Sorry, just doesn't sound right to me.

Oh, whee.

Defensive signings now, please.

they say wenger is planning to use Theo as a CF/ST and Oxlade as a winger.

not sure about that though

Im happy with the signing, if wenger is spending 15m on him, he must be somethign special

but i hope we sign a CB as fast as we signed oxlade

Alot of money, but if the club were willing to dish out this much, he must be showing some potential.

^I really don't get why we'd shift Theo now...he was fantastic on the wings for us last season.

I'm still extremely pissed off we still haven't made a CB/LB signing yet...

£6.5m rising to £11.5m. This is what I have read regarding the cost of AOC. #afc

So this is the big name player Wenger was talking about lol. What are the chances of us signing more players? I think its 2%

Source for that fee sam?

Everywhere else I'm reading it could potentially be £15million, which absolutely blows my mind.

To think we could have got Mata and Cahill, and maybe even Hazard for £15-20million blows my mind even more.

What the feck is going on?

looks bigger then most other youth we have brought in.....hopefully isn't weak and tiny like alot of our youths...

I hope Gazidis gets a proper grilling tonight at the AISA meeting on how we missed Mata but managed to sign Chamberlain. I really wish to know the answer to that. Btw, someone got to get the details on that, I'm heading out in a while and won't be back till much later in the night..

the_gooner wrote:Source for that fee sam?

Everywhere else I'm reading it could potentially be £15million, which absolutely blows my mind.

To think we could have got Mata and Cahill, and maybe even Hazard for £15-20million blows my mind even more.

What the feck is going on?

A thing to note is, we have paid around 7 million upfront and these players you mention would require that whole 15-20 million upfront.. Makes no sense in the long term if we eventually pay that amount anyway, but atleast in short term, considering only this transfer window, we have essentially signed him for much lesser than what we would have paid NOW to sign a Hazard or a Mata. (I'm still wondering if this makes any sense).

we still haven't fully paid everything for walcott or arshavin have we?

Great signing for the future ? YES , But for now? NO

I heard a lot about him... Let see how good he is.

Just thinking this probably means the end for Lansbury's time at Arsenal. Just not enough room in the squad and he won't get ample first team opportunities now.

Also, I should add that Southampton are saying this is a record deal for them and it's supposedly the biggest deal in Championship history! Must mean we're paying more for Chamberlain than we did for Walcott, the previous record.

Lansbury should be going on loan to a low-league or new promoted clubs this year and get some experinced.....

If this is indeed Wegner's so called big name signing then he has surely lost it, young potential players are always good but we are still waiting Mr. Wegner...

Another loan at Norwich would be good for him.. But I'd rather we sent Chamberlain out on loan and gave Lansbury a good chance..

http://twitpic.com/631g7x

Can't help but feel this signing was also made with the home-grown players rule in mind.

Considering we haven't got Clichy and Denilson anymore and could be losing Fabregas and Bendtner; that's four home grown players.

Also, it looks like we're building a British midfiled; Frimpong, Ramsey, Wilshere, now Chamberlain and possibly Walcott as well.


Awesome.

GoonerJay29 wrote:Can't help but feel this signing was also made with the home-grown players rule in mind.

Considering we haven't got Clichy and Denilson anymore and could be losing Fabregas and Bendtner; that's four home grown players.

Also, it looks like we're building a British midfiled; Frimpong, Ramsey, Wilshere, now Chamberlain and possibly Walcott as well.

Frimpong

Ramsey --- Wilshere

Walcott ------------------ Chamberlain

Afobe

Awesome.

The beautiful football soon will be gone,