Arsenal: Mediocre Maitland-Niles isn’t ready for serious midfield role

Arsenal’s win at Ostersund FK left a lot to be desired, but a win is a win. Digging deeper though, Ainsley Maitland-Niles needs to improve.

Arsenal ran without Granit Xhaka for the first time in awhile against Ostersunds FK and naturally, most people were just begging for a reason to gripe about how Xhaka should now be replaced. The problem (for them) is that neither Mohamed Elneny nor Ainsley Maitland-Niles did anything Granit Xhaka couldn’t do.

In fact, I’d argue that the two of them combined were only just as good as Xhaka. I’ll start with Elneny.

As Elneny is a lot or people’s rising champion to overtake Xhaka, I find it hilarious that no one seemed to notice all the time he made his charges into the box on the attack, like Xhaka is so criticized for, despite being a deep-lying midfielder.

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He passed backwards a lot, didn’t win the ball back and didn’t create. He was a steady, cool customer, and that’s what we needed. But nothing about his performance was anywhere near what Xhaka has done against bigger and better opposition. Just look at the two against Tottenham.

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And Ainsley Maitland-Niles? I think the world of this kid. Really, I do. I call him the Iceman, although I may need to reassess that since his blunder at Bournemouth and his complete mental collapse ever since, but still.

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I was yapping all week about the need to start him in midfield and, lo and behold, he did. It was his first go at it, so expecting the world was a foolish thing to do. That said, he wasn’t great at all. He lost the ball more than anyone else on the pitch, Ostersunds included, and a lot of them were just overly-audacious runs into dangerous areas without any idea what to do with it.

I don’t mind the principle behind making those runs, that’s what Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere do next to Xhaka. But to think that he is ready to supplant Xhaka? Not a chance. Not to mention the fact that that is his style of play, meaning that in no way should he be considered a replacement for Xhaka unless you want to put a leash on his abilities.

Which means that you have to ask if he is ready to replace either Ramsey or Wilshere and the answer to both of those is no. Not that that’s a bad thing, he’s young, this was his first go. But for all the people out there (my co-expert included) that think that Maitland-Niles could have a go at Xhaka’s role, I have to respectfully say “hell no.”

Maitland-Niles wasn’t the most effective defensive midfielder anyway. He had some solid stats, which he deserves credit for, and did some good defending in front of the box, but so does Xhaka. Xhaka’s problem isn’t in the hunker-down defending, it’s in the fast-pace counter-attack defending.

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Maitland-Niles has a future in the midfield, absolutely he does. But it all depends on what the plan for this midfield set up is, because after just one performance, he is far from a starting XI shoe-in.