Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has revealed that Thierry Henry was known for his intense criticism of young players who failed to score during one-on-one opportunities, often telling them they wouldn’t succeed with such mistakes.

Back in 2012, when Oxlade-Chamberlain, now 32, was emerging at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, Henry returned to the club for a brief stint under Arsene Wenger’s management.

Henry was re-signed on a two-month loan, during which he appeared in seven matches and made headlines by scoring against Leeds United in his memorable comeback game.

Oxlade-Chamberlain, who played alongside Henry in three matches, shared insights on how the legendary striker would react furiously to missed chances by younger teammates.

Speaking on Fozcast – The Ben Foster Podcast, the midfielder recounted, “He would lay into players for missing one-on-ones. When I say ‘hammer,’ it was often a point of no return for some.”

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has says Thierry Henry would ‘hammer’ young players for missing

The Frenchman was allegedly hard on young players upon his return to the Emirates in 2012

Oxlade-Chamberlain described how Henry would erupt at young players failing to replicate his signature move—approaching from the left, perfectly placing the ball into the net—and how he would express his frustration when they missed.

Oxlade-Chamberlain said Henry would ask players if they ‘think that’s good enough’ after they had missed the target, before telling them, ‘you’re never going to make it doing that’.

Though he only spent a total of around 40 minutes on the same pitch as Henry, the 32-year-old said he would try to absorb any criticism from the Frenchman rather than cower from it.

‘The right person would react to that in the right way,’ Oxlade-Chamberlain continued.

‘And if it was me, I used to be like “tell me more, what do I have to do?”. Because I was that character I felt in that short period of time he helped me quite a lot and gave me advice on what I need to do.

‘But you know if you didn’t react well to that, people would maybe think “he’s not for me, he’s a bit too much,” and I just looked at it like, “you were one of the best, if not the best, in the Prem. I’m listening to everything you say”.’

Oxlade-Chamberlain, who is now training at Arsenal’s London Colney again, said he felt the standards rise as soon as Henry walked back through the door – even though he was ‘not the same Henry as he was’ in his prime.

He continued: ‘The expectations he put on us lot, and you know the finishing and stuff that he prides really high: winning, scoring, shooting competitions – strikers were missing, and he is nailing them.

Oxlade-Chamberlain was breaking through at Arsenal when Henry made his triumphant return

‘And I used to think if that’s what they were all doing in that team, no wonder they were [Invincible].’

Oxlade-Chamberlain’s praise for Henry comes years after he had a public spat with the Arsenal legend, who criticised him shortly after he made a £35million move to Liverpool.

After the midfielder was lured to Anfield by then-boss Jurgen Klopp, Henry claimed: ‘I still don’t know what he’s good at.’

Responding to the jibe, the midfielder said the comments were ‘stupid’ and ‘not nice to hear’.

But the Frenchman, appearing on Sky Sports, appeared to patch up any offence he had caused by clarifying what he meant by his comments.

‘Oxlade-Chamberlain deserves praise for what he’s done during his short time at Liverpool so far,’ Henry said on air in 2018.

‘But we didn’t see that clearly at Arsenal. There has always been a lot of debate as to what Oxlade-Chamberlain’s best position is. One day he was a wing back, one day he was a left winger, one day a right winger and on another a No 10.

‘That was the problem at Arsenal, we just didn’t know. It’s so difficult to find out who you are and what you are good at if you don’t have a run of games in a settled position.’