Confirmed: Maitland-Niles set to be an Arsenal star for many years…

But that versatility has now been rewarded with a long term contract and an earned pay rise as Emery is convinced that AMN will become an integral part of his new revolution at the Emirates. The official Arsenal website announced the good news by posting this….

Ainsley Maitland-Niles has signed a long-term contract extension with the club.

Joining our academy at the age of nine, he enjoyed another successful season, featuring regularly for the first team in 2017/18. He made 28 appearances during the campaign at wing-back or full-back and in midfield.

An England youth international, Ainsley has captained his country at under-20 level and was a key figure in their under-20 World Cup triumph in June 2017, the first time the Young Lions have ever lifted the trophy.

Ainsley will wear the No 15 shirt next season. Congratulations on your new contract Ainsley. We all look forward to your continued progress with us.

Ainsley was particularly impressed that Unai Emery had a big discussion with the Board about him before he was even given Arsene Wenger’s old job, and that has convinced the 21 year-old that he had a big future with us. He said: “You don’t really hear a lot of young players being shouted out by their managers, especially a new manager who hasn’t really seen them play too much,”

“I think it’s brilliant to hear from him and it gives me a load of confidence.

“It feels fantastic knowing that I’m going to be a part of the squad, and a big part of the squad. It means a lot with the new head coach coming in and Arsenal tying me down [with a new contract]. I’m very pleased.

“We had a little meeting. He said that he wants all of his players to work hard and I’m no stranger to doing that. It will be second nature to me.

“I think [the high-pressing game] suits me a lot, too. I’ve got a lot of pace to give to the team, pressing up high and winning the ball back as soon as possible is a major factor in football.”

28 Comments

  1. He deserves it! Do any of you know how much his new weekly wages are? Should be in the same level as Mustafi and Xhaka no?

    1. As you say, NO! They should not be here at all and hopefully soon will not be. AM-N is worth far more than both put together and his wages should show that too.

      1. C’mon AMN is clearly talented and more importantly hard working but damn Mustafi/Xhaka have achieved more to date on the pitch regardless of your opinion of them going forward (they are older and not without faults.) AMN should be on a contract that reflects his up and comming status if and I think it’s when he’s been a 1st team regular then he gets a better contract. You people would of said the same about Iwobi/Bellerin/whoever when they came through and then complained about their high wages. Please Jon if you happened to hate one of those players from day 1 don’t launch into a tirade I am sure there are plenty of young players you did rate who failed to make the grade if your honest and that is the point. Hell Gibbs was well rated as was Bendtner straight from the youth. List is endless as it will always be.

        1. I disagree what have them 2 players achieved,mustafi was an Everton reject and hasn’t done anything at arsenal football club for me to think yea he’s decent.
          Same for xhaka ,people go on about his left foot ,but I can only recall 2 goals that’s he’s scored since he’s been here ,he’s one paced , can’t tackle , and I’ve seen better passers in the last 10 years that have played for us .Regarding AMN , I haven’t been this excited for a long time about a player ,reminds me of a certain player called Diaby (who would have been a world beater if not for injuries).the kids got evertihing ,power ,pace ,recovery ,strength ,skills ,and most important a cool head .

        2. A high salary too soon will spoil him.
          Happens all the time, especially with English players.

          Give him 50-60.000, but if he plays consistently and continues improving, raise it to 100 – 150.000 (depending on how much he improves…)

          1. @Xxnofx
            letting your mother die in the street isn’t exactly a cool head .A good player though

              1. @pires .football talk m8,don’t believe everything you google ,haven’t seen you on here since wenger left ?

                1. AMN isn’t diaby be real… Diaby was potentially Frances best player and there is not many in France that disagree. AMN is not that c’mon…. Hardworking and will have a career and we’re lucky to have him but he’ll at best be a different kind of legend…. i guess gary neville kind of mold.

    1. Me too Sue! From what I have seen and read his work-rate really stands out which is both great and kind of sad when you think about it.

  2. AMN is a beast and he will be huge for us next season, I can actually see him and Torreira behind Ozil more than any other pairing as Ozil needs two fighters behind him to be his best. I can also see AMN, Torreira and Ramsey as a fantastic midfield trio. Exciting times ahead.

  3. By long term, how long exactly do we mean? It’s just that I’m thinking of getting his face tattooed on my back so I’m going to need some commitment from him.

  4. Nelson was more hyped, some even reckoned him to have similar abilities as Mbappe’s, but Maitland-Niles showed his progress better than the other Arsenal academy products

    I hope Nelson, Adelaide and Dasilva can thrive like him. Joel Campbell used to have similar potential and chances, but I think he would be released

    1. Nelson is considered the best youth player since Wilshere. The previous owner of that crown I believe was Gnabry (may of been Iwobi memory is hazy pretty sure it was Gnabry though) who did very well on loan from Bayern at Wolfsburg last year. Campbell was never ever on that list not least as he never came through the academy in the 1st place, he was on loan until he could play for in the UK. Surely Nwakali (not academy but you mentioned campbell) deserves a mention with Adelaide/Da Silva.

      For the record Niles is 20, Nelson is 18. Let Nelson catch up.. see this too often. Ronaldo didn’t sign for MU until 18 and was very raw back then. Sterling’s record for instance compares very well with Ronaldos early years yet he gets insane he’s overrated hate, it’s kind of funny really.

        1. yeah sadly we don’t have a ronaldo/sterling yet but maybe nelson starts hitting that this year (people forget both mentioned were single fig goal/assists at that point.)

  5. Gk – Leno/Cech
    Rb – Bellerin/Lichtensteiner
    Lb – Nacho/Kola
    Cb – Sokratis/Soyuncu/Mavros/Chambers/Koss
    Cm – Toreeira/AMN/Ramsey/Elneny/Xhaka
    Am -Ozil/Mhiki
    Rw – Galson Martins/Nelson
    Lw – Iwobi/Welbeck
    St -Auba/Laca

    This looks like a team that can at least challenge for top 4. The only glaring weakness seems to be Lw, maybe Unai can get the best out of Iwobi in that position or maybe we can stretch our transfer funds to also get Draxler from PSG who need to sell players to comply with FFB

    1. Brother , rather have mkhitaryan on the LW rather than the dynamic duo of iwobi and welbeck

    1. It’s a NAFTA World Cup … Can’t see the orange man liking that as he is more or less on a war footing with both his neighbors …

    2. well other option was Morocco. They simply don’t have the infrastructure yet to host this big of a tournament. Check out some of the analyses they did and it would’ve been a nightmare. I really hope they are selected in the future though. This is the third time in a pretty short span Mexico will be hosting World Cup too.

  6. Great news. Jumping ahead of myself a bit here given Torreira hasn’t put pen to paper yet but I expect AMN to be pushing Xhaka hard by Christmas to be first choice as one of the two CMs in front of the back four.

  7. Get this guy game time next season please. Would love to see him in the rotation of our CMs/CDMs. Same with Nketiah, who will probably have to settle with out wide, but I think he is talented enough to adapt. Strangely AW used Nelson over Nketiah even after the Norwich game and I cant understand why. Nelson has not taken his chances when he gets game time, and I haven’t even seen flashes of his brilliance.

Comments are closed

Top Blog Sponsors