Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp is delighted with the return from injury of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Klopp has angrily dismissed suggestions which have become a perceived wisdom in the past year, that the England star may never get back to his brilliant best, following a series of debilitating injuries.
The midfielder hasn't played this season, after picking up another knee injury at a summer training camp in Austria. But he is back in full first team training now, and could even make the squad for Sunday's visit to Fulham.
“Being compared to the best moment of your career after coming back from an injury is a really dumb thing to do. 'Oh, he's not that good anymore' - I have no time for that," Klopp said.
“I don't understand these kind of discussions to be honest. You have to be injured once in your life to understand how difficult it is to find everything completely natural and normal again after that.
“Ox is an outstanding player, an outstanding player, was always and will always be. In training, what he did so far you can see his quality immediately. Immediately!
“The longer he can stay without injury the better he will be. This time we are really confident we can do that until the end of his career."
The Liverpool manager explained that Oxlade-Chamberlain makes a difference both on and off the pitch - as his contribution in training since returning from injury proves emphatically.
“He is a difference-maker, you can see that. Ox is his best therapist himself," Klopp explained.
“He is just a very positive person, very optimistic person...in a moment when he joins parts of team training again, everybody gets the benefit of that. That's the way he is.
“You don't know that you missing him because he is not there for a long time, and then the moment he comes in and is in the gym with the players they say 'ok, right, it's much better when he is here.' That's Ox.
"In the first few weeks the boys get all the help they need, but then, especially with Ox, he is the energy giver, he doesn't need too much energy from other people."
