The current situation with Ainsley Maitland-Niles: Will he leave Arsenal?

A lot of controversy has been stirred up in the Arsenal camp in the final days of the transfer window; clearly, emotions were running wild for Ainsley Maitland-Niles when he publicly pleaded on his Instagram story in a search for regular first-team football.

The forgotten Gunner stated “All I wanna do is go where I’m wanted and where I’m gonna play” in his recent post. The message was obviously aimed at his current club, as he directly tagged Arsenal in the post. This has been seen as somewhat of an embarrassment for both Mikel Arteta and the club as a whole.

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Evidently, Maitland-Niles isn’t happy at Arsenal since returning from his loan spell at West Bromwich Albion last season. The taste of regular starts he received for The Baggies last season is clearly something he wants to experience more of.

At 24 years of age, Ainsley needs game time in order to progress in his football career. Whilst some may call his actions unprofessional, we can understand the difficult position that he has been put in at Arsenal, almost being forced to fight for an opportunity to see any time on the pitch, let alone consistent starts.

As reported by David Ornstein, Everton recently reached out to Arsenal in an attempt to sign Maitland-Niles on loan – but after some consideration – the potential move was shut down by The Gunners. This will likely see him stranded at Arsenal, at least until the next transfer window in mid-season.

The culture at Arsenal is at an extreme low right now, coming off 3 consecutive losses and sitting last on the league table – having unhappy players at the club will certainly not help amend their current issues.

Despite Maitland-Niles’ versatility to play in a variety of positions across the pitch – including on the left or right flank, or in central midfield as we saw at West Brom – Arteta has failed to utilise him, despite all the current injuries/outs in the Arsenal squad.

Even Sead Kolasinac was surprisingly given the nod to start against Manchester City, with Mikel Arteta waiting until the game was truly done and dusted to bring on Maitland-Niles from the bench for a brief 19-minute cameo – which has been his only appearance so far this season.