According to a report by the Evening Standard, Arsenal’s Ainsley Maitland-Niles is attracting interest from Brighton & Hove Albion.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles is a product of Arsenal’s infamous Hale End academy, though has struggled for regular game time this season which has led to speculation that he might be open to a move away from the Emirates Stadium at end of the ongoing campaign.
Maitland-Niles is pretty versatile around the pitch and is contracted with the Gunners upto 2023 – though looking at the bleak game-time, Brighton are looking to scramble him off somehow.
With just 1293 minutes of Premier League football, he has faced tough competition from the likes Lucas Torreira, Dani Ceballos and Granit Xhaka who are preferred by Mikel Arteta in midfield.
He started in Arsenal’s 2-0 FA Cup semi-final victory over Manchester City and Arsenal’s head coach Mikel Arteta has indicated he wants the midfielder to stay. In the post match interview Arteta spoke about the importance of having a versatile player like Maitland-Niles saying, “He’s a player who can play in many different positions, we have discussed the things in my opinion that he can improve or adapt to his game because he has incredible quality. He has every quality that you need to be a football player to play the highest level and he just needs to do it in a little bit more of a consistent way, but he is someone who can adapt to any position as well.”
Exclusive: Ainsley Maitland-Niles been linked with a move this summer and understand Brighton one of the clubs keen on him.
Arteta has hinted he wants him to stay though.
Full story:https://t.co/Nd13WqRVhP
— Simon Collings (@sr_collings) July 21, 2020
