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Wenger’s Aura Motivated Me To Join Arsenal – Chamberlain

Arsenal and England starlet Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has revealed why he snubbed Manchester United to sign for the North London club. After playing for Southampton for over a decade, Chamberlain joined the Gunners last summer after refusing interests shown in him by various English clubs including Manchester United. The 19 year old has made a remarkable progress since his debut last year against Manchester United, in a game which ended 8-2 in favor of United.  Chamberlain has always favored a move to Arsenal over Manchester United having admired the Gunners playing style since he was a child.

Wenger motivated me to join Arsenal – Chamberlain

Speaking to Sport Magazine’s  Sarah Shephard, Chamberlain revealed the story behind his decision. 

“It was a bit surprising at first, because I used to watch Match of the Day every week and dream of coming to a massive club like Arsenal. But my parents never let me get carried away, and at the same time I had a lot of respect for all my teammates at Southampton. It was nice to hear all those clubs were interested, but it wasn’t hard for me to keep my feet on the ground – I had a lot of commitments at Southampton that season. So I just kept my head down and focused on that. You almost let everything take care of itself, as it did in the end.

“I always favoured Arsenal. It’s a massive club and I’ve loved the way they’ve played football and brought players through. When I was younger, I used to go and watch Southampton versus Arsenal when they came to the club and loved watching Thierry Henry. I went to the Emirates a few times, too, and the atmosphere was just unbelievable. So it wasn’t a hard decision for me.”

The most surprising point noted from the interview was when Chamberlain told that the first time he met Arsene Wenger was the day he arrived at Arsenal to finalise his contract. It was a shock to everyone as Wenger managed to lure the player even after his rival coach Sir Alex Ferguson had openly admitted that he wanted to sign the youngster. 

“The first time I met him [Wenger] was actually on the day I signed. He’s a nice man, you know? He’s very calm and has that aura about him – you know he’s the boss. The way he speaks is really intelligent and everything he said to me on the first day was quite inspirational, it gave me a lot of drive to come in and prove that he made the right decision to sign me.”

Chamberlain has so far made a total of 33 appearances for the Gunners scoring 5 times and assisting 4. The Winger is expected to be in the starting XI later today when England take on San Marino in their latest World cup qualifier. Along with Chamberlain, Walcott is said to be included in the pacy England attack.