How has it come to this for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, one of the most gifted and decorated England internationals of his generation?

Here, after all, is a midfielder whose precocious talent as a teenager at Southampton went on to earn him a full house of English trophies.

In six years with Arsenal and six with Liverpool, there was also a Champions League winner’s medal and 35 caps for his country.

And yet now, at the age of 33, he finds himself struggling to get games for a Celtic side who are a shadow of their former selves, especially in Europe.

Used only sparingly this season, the Ox was given a rare start against Falkirk yesterday, when he was preferred to Benjamin Nygren.

Celtic boss Martin O’Neill said he needed someone with experience to take care of the ball but the Englishman was substituted 65 minutes into a 2-0 defeat.

It will not have escaped Oxlade-Chamberlain’s notice that former club Besiktas are Celtic’s next opponents in the Europa League on Thursday night.

The midfielder’s recent travails can be traced back to his move to Turkey in 2023, after Liverpool deemed him surplus to requirements.

His first few months at Besiktas went well enough, but he was soon sidelined by injury, as he had frequently been at Anfield, and his career in Turkey was already on the slide.

Concerned by his fitness and his salary, Besiktas wanted to offload him but he stayed another season and found himself frozen out by manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst.

Although Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was more willing to give him opportunities, his contract was terminated in July and it wasn’t until the following February that he found another club.

That club was Celtic, so plagued by crises on and off the pitch that they were happy to secure him on a short-term deal, even if he was a little rusty.

Oxlade-Chamberlain made all the right noises, describing Celtic as the ‘perfect fit’, the kind of club whose size and expectation he was used to.

And sure enough, he scored a late winner on his debut against Livingston and helped his new team to a double, albeit the most troubled one in their long history. He then signed a one-year contract extension and spoke of looking forward to his first proper pre-season in three years.

It hasn’t done him much good. So far, he has made only eight appearances, four of them from the start. O’Neill seems loath to rotate a midfield in which Callum McGregor is over-used.

You can’t have the world at your feet forever, but a little more game time was expected for a player who is two years younger than James Forrest.

Maybe all those injuries have caught up with him. Maybe his playing style isn’t best suited to the ageing process. In his prime, he was explosive, strong and adept at breaking the lines, whereas now the priority is to stay fit.

Or perhaps he is just another victim of the Celtic curse that befalls Premier League stars who venture north in the twilight of their careers.

From Middlesbrough’s Brazilian World Cup winner Juninho, to Arsenal greats Ian Wright and Freddie Ljungberg, there are more than a few who have come a cropper in Glasgow’s east end.

Oxlade-Chamberlain isn’t in that category, but he has work to do if his veteran stardust is to have any chance of disguising the deep-rooted problems at Celtic Park. He needs a chance, and he needs to take it… sooner rather than later.