Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has revealed he has played the majority of the last two seasons in pain as he suffered the knock-on effects of the knee ligament damage sustained on the opening day of the 2013-14 campaign.

The Arsenal midfielder, who should gain his 21st cap against San Marino on Saturday, was ruled out for five months at the start of that season after straining the posterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in a tackle with Aston Villa’s Antonio Luna.

While the 22-year-old has featured regularly for club and country in the period since, and managed 42 appearances last season, he has been discomforted by secondary injuries linked to that knee damage.

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“It was a knock-on effect from the cruciate injury that I had from the first day of the season a couple of years ago when we lost to Villa,” said Oxlade-Chamberlain.

“It’s all been a chain reaction from that, just being out for five or six months for the first time in your life. I’d never been out, not playing or running around, for that long with my knee in a brace. Your balance can shift when that happens and you start loading more on one side than the other, and that’s when the muscle problems creep in.

“It ended up in my groin from the compensation and I struggled with that for a large part of last season. I didn’t know what was wrong but just felt the pain in my groin. Nothing was showing on the scans and it was just the strength from the groin and abdominal region. It was a massive strain.

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“You take it for granted when you don’t have a niggle and, even though I managed to get through 20 games at one stage last season, there were times when I’d try to get up from the bed, or from sitting on the sofa, and was in so much pain.

“I couldn’t get round it in my head that I was struggling with the simplest of tasks but was still playing games. Playing wasn’t making it any worse, but it wasn’t improving either. Then, towards the end of the season, something turned the screw. I don’t know what. All of a sudden it went away as if nothing had happened, which always seems to be the case after a long injury. The fact is the injury changed my body slightly, and the way my muscles and body react to playing as many games as we do. But, so far this season, I’ve felt good. It’s been a while since I felt pain-free like that. It’s a big burden off me that I can play with that freedom and I’m not playing in pain.”

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Oxlade-Chamberlain has spent the last few days being put through his paces at St George’s Park by Gary Neville who, in his capacity as a pundit on Sky, had delivered a stinging criticism of Arsène Wenger’s transfer policy over the last decade ahead of Arsenal’s recent draw against Liverpool at the Emirates Stadium. Neville had suggested the manager’s inability to sign “players of power”, and his tendency to convert wingers such as Oxlade-Chamberlain into central midfielders, had been born of arrogance.

Yet those observations have not ostracised the Arsenal contingent within the England dressing room, with Neville maintaining the players’ respect. “He’s a very honest person, telling us what we need to improve on, and he has earned that respect through his own playing career,” added Oxlade-Chamberlain.

“Everyone really does listen to what he has to say and respects his opinions. You can take criticism off him and you know he means well by it and he’s being constructive. So I think that’s great and why he’s such a great coach.

“He’s my favourite pundit. I always do want to listen to what he has to say on the television and, nine times out of 10, I agree with everything he says.

“He’s brilliant the way he explains things and I think he is very respectful when he says what teams need to do better and what players need to do better in a game.

“It could be a tricky situation when he’s talking about our games on TV and then he comes to work with England, but he seems to manage to do it without any of us holding a grudge against him.”