Thierry Henry 'would hammer young players' and tell them 'you're never going to make it' on his return to Arsenal at 34

Thierry Henry would 'hammer' young players for missing one-vs-ones and tell them they were 'never going to make it by doing that', Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has claimed.

Oxlade-Chamberlain, 32, was breaking through at the Emirates when Henry made his triumphant return to north London under Arsene Wenger in 2012.

Brought in on a two-month loan deal, the Frenchman played a total of seven games and famously scored against Leeds United on his second debut for the club.

Though Henry's return was far less glittering than his first spell at the club - during which he became a member of the 2003/04 invincible side - it was thought that the club legend could be an inspiration to a young Arsenal squad.

But Oxlade-Chamberlain, who shared the pitch with Henry on three occasions at Arsenal, has now revealed that the veteran forward would 'go mental' at youngsters for missing opportunities.

'He would hammer people for missing one-vs-ones,' the midfielder said on Fozcast - The Ben Foster Podcast. 'Like when I say hammer, there’s no coming back for some of them.

'Young lads going through. The classic Henry on the left side, just open it up and slot it. They’d miss and he’d go mental at them.'

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.

'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.'