Arsenal has officially announced the departure of Ainsley Maitland-Niles, who has been with the club for 20 years since joining as a six-year-old. He leads the list of players being released by the club.
Similar to other Premier League clubs, Arsenal has made the decision to part ways with players they believe do not have a future at the club.
According to The Sun, Maitland-Niles tops the list of departures following his loan spell at Southampton last season, which unfortunately ended in relegation from the Premier League.
Maitland-Niles has spent the past two seasons mostly out on loan, and during his time at AS Roma in the 2021/2022 season, he won the Europa Conference League.
Although he had hoped to aid Southampton in retaining their top-flight status, their relegation means he will now seek a new club for his future endeavours.
In addition to Maitland-Niles, Arsenal has also released Zach Awe, Joel Ideho, George Lewis, Matt Smith, and Tom Smith, as the club aims to prepare for the upcoming season by focusing on players they believe will be part of their future plans.
Just Arsenal Opinion
We are now back in the Champions League, meaning there is no room for mediocrity.
We have worked hard to reach this level and must maintain it with all we got. If we keep quality players and get rid of average footballers, we have a very good chance of winning the league and other trophies soon.
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It’s always a shame when promising homegrown players don’t make it to the next level.
Becoming a top player isn’t easy. Luck can play a part but in AMN’s case he could have cemented a place in the squad but appeared to have a too high opinion of his talents and lost out. Hope for his sake that he can resurrect his career while he is still young enough.
20 million lost ,oh well.
Personally thought he could still do a good job especially when you see players like Vieria getting game time .
Yes 20 mil turned down and then we didn’t utilise him after.
That was a random decision on the face of it
It was a strange decision indeed Sue. We have ended up getting zilch.
Logically, doesn’t turning down the supposesd £20 million for AMN show that Arteta thought AMN could improve?. He thought retaining him back then was better than selling him for £20 million, isn’t?
AMN has been in and around the first team since 2015. He has been given enough opportunities to prove himself and seems to have been found lacking.
Vieira has been here for one season. Why not give him as much time as you have and continue to afford AMN? Fair or Not?
Do I smell Hypocrisy?
🤭
For a lad that had shown so much promise, it’s a big shame he has come to this, there was a time a rumored intrest of some £20 mill was touted from Wolves.
The last time I saw him played was Southampton vs Chelsea, not one time Mudryk was able to get pass him.
Hope’s by watching his fellow country man Ben white, it may have taught him something to go by and tempered his stubbornness.
Wants to wish him well to salvage what left of what was a once promising player, hopes the highly decorated Spaniard at Aston Villa remembers him.
I’ve had my say on AMN in a previous article by Dan Smith.
What may have gone under the radar, however, is the name of Matt Smith.
He was deemed to be a better player on the substitute bench at our last cup final, despite not having played one minute in the first team squad, while the manager left out Mesut Ozil.
Three years later and I believe that he still hasn’t played a minute in the first team squad and yet leaves with a FA cup winners medal.
The ironic fact is that both players were let go without any transfer fee being obtained.
All I can say is that, along with the free transfer of AMN, we really do need to assess our players value more and I hope that MA has, at least, addressed this situation.
I am surprised about Matt Smith as well being let go. He was meant to be a real talent.
A sporting director should aid a manager ,especially when the manager is not experienced. Edu seems to do the opposite .A lot of decisions in the club are questionable . Zinchenko needs to be moved like Bellerin and Ozil before him. You either eat, breathe and bleed Arsenal or get the stepping.
It seemed like the problem was that Mainsley always wanted to play further forward, but was better in defence. He was given the opportunity to play further forward once, as I remember, but was worse than useless. Not that I really know, but have read articles that he was partial to complaining on this issue, and that probably didn’t go down well with MA.
Gmv8- From what have seen in him, he was very Athletic and defensively sound in that right back role.
Due to his athleticism forwards would have to double up on him or try to beat him twice to go pass , and he was rapidly gaining a reputation in that right corner.
Think his athleticism or mobility has given him that confidence that he could Marshall the middle, but his limitations was exposed as Arsenal players in the middle plays with a lot more technical abilities which he lacks.