Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has thrown a punch back at Roy Keane after the Irishman accused Arsenal players of being more interested in selfies and six-packs than winning the league.
Keane has always been known for his hatred for Arsenal. As a United player, the Irishman would hugely enjoy taking swipes at the Arsenal players, and endured a few memorable scraps with Gunners midfielder Patrick Vieira.
“Arsenal have some really good players – some good characters who roll their sleeves up,” said Keane.
“But they also have one or two players who are more interested in selfies and six-packs, guys who are trying to get their pictures taken every day of the week.”
But England international and Arsenal winger Oxlade-Chamberlain, who scored the winner in Arsenal’s 1-0 Community Shield win over Chelsea on Sunday, has given some stern words to Keane.
“It’s a new era, isn’t it? Some people do it, some don’t,” he said.
“We’re serious about winning trophies. Personally, and I can speak for the rest of the squad, we’ve been serious every single year I’ve been at the club about winning trophies. You can see that on the pitch when we’re playing, through the season. A lot of people don’t see when we lose and go through tough times how upset and disappointed we are. We’ve always wanted to win trophies and in the last years we’ve won a few. This season we want to go that one better.”
Oxlade-Chamberlain also expressed his feelings about his Arsenal team-mates, insisting the squad is closer than ever.
“We’ve all been together a good number of years, we’ve shared two consecutive successes in the FA Cup and we’ve had the highs from that. As a team we’ve suffered some upsets as well and we’ve learnt from that.”
“Ever since I’ve been at Arsenal we’ve had quality players. It just seemed that in the big games we came up short and you wonder why. The mentality was a big thing. We’ve got better at that, especially last year. A [win] against Chelsea is always important for us. It helps the confidence going into that next fixture against them. But it is a long season and it is early. We can’t get too carried away.”
[Quotes via the Independent]