Oxlade-Chamberlain ruled out for a full year

The full extent of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s horrific injury has been revealed with the Liverpool midfielder set to miss the entire 2018-19 season.Oxlade-Chamberlain suffered multiple ligament damage when he went for a tackle during the first leg of Liverpool’s Champions League semi-final; every major ligament in his right knee was damaged, including the cruciate, medial and lateral collateral ligament.

The England international – who at that part of the season had become an integral member of Jurgen Klopp’s team – also damaged a tendon, which leads to the hamstring, resulting in further complications.

Crucially, there was no impact to his cartilage nor were any of his bones broken. He was operated on eight days after the incident by the renowned knee surgeon Dr Andy Williams and it was initially indicated that Oxlade-Chamberlain could potentially be available in November.

Privately, however, Oxlade-Chamberlain was told shortly after the procedure that if he wanted to make a full recovery, he would face a spell of 12 months on the sidelines. He kept the diagnosis to himself as he did not want anything to distract Liverpool’s push to win the Champions League.

The early stages of his rehabilitation have gone smoothly and the operation was a complete success. Oxlade-Chamberlain, though, knew that Liverpool’s return to training would see Klopp being asked about his fitness and his manager has now chosen to deliver the grim reality.

It feels like now is an appropriate time to tell people that for Ox this coming season will be about focusing on recovery and rehab,’ Klopp said.‘We have known this from pretty much the day after he got the injury and after the successful surgery, we were sure of it.‘I hope everyone treats this information responsibly. There has been no change, no setback – it’s exactly on the schedule we expected and planned for. The new information is that we’re now giving more detail publicly.