As featured on NewsNow: Football news

Oxlade-Chamberlain: How Arsenal welcome new players in to the dressing room…

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has given some insight into how the Arsenal squad welcomes new players to the club.

Almost every summer and winter, the Gunners bring in players from all corners of the globe to try and bolster their playing group.

With that comes a bevy of varying languages and cultures which Oxlade-Chamberlain explains can be overcome by the simple sounds of football.

"On the pitch you don't really need to speak the same language to be able to understand what each other want," Oxlade-Chamberlain told Arsenal Player.

"It's more just shouting and pointing and you can get by just fine by doing that.

"Off the pitch in the dressing room when you're trying to explain things to your team-mates or they're trying to explain something to you, that's when it can become a little bit more difficult.

"But I think the key thing is quite early on, finding a word or a few words that they understand and then you just use them to speak to someone.

"Whether it's a joke or to explain something on football, you find a few key words that they understand and you understand and you can communicate just using a few words and pointing and using different tones of voice and that's the way you go about it.

"I think to keep the camaraderie and the banter going around the dressing room you find a few words that they can resonate with being a joke and you'll just be shouting them out all around the dressing room all day and making sure everyone's really involved.

"We've got a lot of boys that do that well. I keep thinking of Danny Welbeck. He's one, he has jokes with someone like Gabriel who doesn't speak great English and they'll be joking for 10 minutes and I don't know what they're talking about but they seem to be getting on like a house on fire."

"If you're warm with someone that doesn't speak your language, they don't need to understand what you're saying to understand that you're close to them and they're important to you and the team.

"That's the way it is and I think Arsenal is very nicely built like that. It's a very nice environment for new players to come into and join the squad, whether they speak English or not."

Video of the day:

Andrew Slevison
About the author

Andrew Slevison

×

Subscribe and go ad-free

For only $10 a year

  1. Go Ad-Free
  2. Faster site experience
  3. Support great writing
  4. Subscribe now
Launch Offer: 2 months free
×

Subscribe and go ad-free

For only $10 a year

Subscribe now
Launch Offer: 2 months free