EFL Cup Could Be Pivotal for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain's Arsenal Career

The next round of the EFL Cup sees Arsenal meet Championship side Reading at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday. As ever, it will provide an ideal occasion for manager Arsene Wenger to rotate his squad and thus a platform for players on the fringes of the setup to state their case for regular first-team involvement.

No-one will be more desperate to seize their opportunity than Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. In this most crucial of seasons for the English midfielder, he knows he must take every chance he gets.

The reason this season is particularly important for Oxlade-Chamberlain is that he is now into the final two years of his contract—a fact substantiated by Dave Kidd of the Mirror. Arsenal will presumably make a decision on whether or not to offer him an extension by next summer.  

However, it’s not only "make your mind up time" for the club. Oxlade-Chamberlain also faces a decision as to whether he’d sign it. At the start of next season, he will be 24.

The fact that Oxlade-Chamberlain arrived at Arsenal as a callow youth means he is perennially perceived as a player of youthful promise. However, he is now approaching the prime years of his career. He needs to begin converting his potential into performances and playing regular football. 

It’s a fact not lost on Oxlade-Chamberlain, who would dearly love to succeed at Arsenal but is being forced to contemplate the possibility of moving elsewhere to facilitate his development.

Speaking to Sky Sports' Goals on Sunday programme (h/t MailOnline), he said: 

"

I'd be lying if I wasn't going to sit here and say that it has crossed my mind that I need more game time. As a footballer, you want to play every game. Me being myself, I'm not happy when I'm not playing.

There is going to come a time in my career, and I think I'm approaching that, when I do need to be getting more regular football, but my focus completely and utterly now is on playing for Arsenal and still trying to break into the team when I get the opportunity. Help out if I have to come off the bench, do what I did yesterday and come on and make a difference.

My sole aim for now is to help Arsenal and keep pushing myself to play in this team, because you know, I love playing at Arsenal. It's a great club, it's a great team and I've got a lot of faith in the team. There is that in my mind that I do want to get more game time. There comes a time in your career where you have to re-evaluate things and think, "Is that going to be here or elsewhere?”.

"

Oxlade-Chamberlain must know that if he wants to forge a career with Arsenal, he needs to improve.

On the same television show, he was shown a graphic illustrating his starts, goals and assists over the course of his time in north London—he winced. Oxlade-Chamberlain knows he has not yet found a way to convert his gifts into tangible contributions that benefit the team.

Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

He does at least seem to retain the faith of his manager. Wenger appears determined to give Oxlade-Chamberlain every chance to prove himself.

The decision to allow Joel Campbell to leave the club on loan seemed to be part of an attempt to clear a path to the first team for the former Southampton man. Although it may not have been part of Wenger’s design, the loss of Serge Gnabry also helped Oxlade-Chamberlain’s prospects. 

Asked about Oxlade-Chamberlain’s comments, Wenger told the Mirror:

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I can understand, but you buy a player at 17, you spend a lot of money, then you would like him to stay at the club. I think his place is here. We like him. I rate him as a player and hope he will show that he can have a stable position in the team until the end of the season.

This season he has been similar to Walcott. He has not got rewarded yet, but he is in a similar position because he’s worked really hard. 

"

Wenger’s clearly keen to use him—if he is available for selection. One of Oxlade-Chamberlain’s big issues is his fitness. Barely a season seems to go by without him missing a sizeable chunk of the campaign. 

However, the England international could be one of the beneficiaries of Arsenal’s revised approach to managing the condition of their squad.

In the past few years, Wenger and the head of athletic performance enhancement, Shad Forsythe, have managed to improve the club’s injury record substantially.

Per ESPN, Wenger said:

"

I believe we have improved on the muscular injury front tremendously in the last two or three years. Last year we were a bit unlucky with the knocks we got and the joint injuries we got, because they were down to blocks in the game, but overall on the muscular front I think we have done much better, and hopefully we can continue that.

"

If Oxlade-Chamberlain can remain healthy for the duration of 2016/17, that will be a big step in the right direction.

It’s been so far so good on that front, and Oxlade-Chamberlain has benefited with 11 appearances in all competitions.

His overall performances have been strong—he made a good impression in the Gunners’ last Premier League outing against Middlesbrough on Saturday. Brought on as a central midfielder, he showed more ambition in his passing than the starting pair of Francis Coquelin and Mohamed Elneny.

Oxlade-Chamberlain showed that when the likes of Aaron Ramsey and Santi Cazorla are unavailable, he provides a good creative alternative in central midfield.

Dan Mullan/Getty Images

Crucially, he’s also begun to make his presence felt in the final third. Oxlade-Chamberlain already has three goals this season. That’s as many as he managed in the entirety of 2015/16. In fact, he has not surpassed that tally since his first season with the Gunners in 2011/12—and even then, he nabbed just four.

One of his strikes this season came in the EFL Cup, when he raced clear of the defence to finish confidently against Nottingham Forest. If he can add another goal against Reading, it will send a message to Wenger about his readiness to be included in games of greater magnitude. 

For Oxlade-Chamberlain, this match is about more than merely getting through to the next round of a domestic cup. It represents an invaluable opportunity to prove he belongs at Arsenal.

James McNicholas is Bleacher Report's lead Arsenal correspondent and will be following the club from a London base throughout 2016/17. Follow him on Twitter here.