Oxlade-Chamberlain manages 40 minutes for Liverpool Under-23s

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain managed 40 minutes for Liverpool’s Under-23 side on Friday in his first outing since a serious knee injury suffered last April.

The England international sustained ligament damage in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final win over Roma and has not featured for Jurgen Klopp’s side since.

He appeared for the under-23s against Derby County at the Rams’ training centre, playing for most of the first half before being withdrawn after appearing to suffer some discomfort in his hamstring.

However, the midfielder gave the thumbs-up to reporters as he headed back to the dressing room accompanied by a physio.

Klopp insisted this week he would not rush Oxlade-Chamberlain back into the first team after nearly 12 months on the sidelines.

“The plan is to give him some match time,” he told Liverpool’s website.

“All that we saw so far in training looks really good, it looks really exciting, but we all know it is a massive difference between each training session you have and playing a proper game.

“It’s not about the opponent, it’s about judging situations, a bigger pitch, higher intensity, a different concentration level. The preparation for a match is different to a normal training session, so players after a long period [out] need to get used to that.”

@Alex_OxChambo

Good to see AOC back in Red! First 40 minutes complete pic.twitter.com/5V4IUybHIo

— Liverpool FC (@LFC) March 8, 2019