Arsenal: Ainsley Maitland-Niles better option anyway

With Sead Kolasinac out for approximately ten weeks, Arsenal will likely have to start Ainsley Maitland-Niles at left back against Manchester City. Well, he’s probably the better option anyway.

Arsenal start the new season is precisely a week. That is a very exciting sentence to write. Their campaign, as is widely-known now, does not offer Unai Emery the easiest start to his tenure at the Emirates. Manchester City come to the Emirates next Sunday. Emery will not be thanking the fixture gods.

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He will also not be thanking the injury gods. Just ten days prior to City’s arrival, Sead Kolasinac suffered a lingering knock to his left knee in a preseason match against Chelsea. Although he soldiered on for some time, he was eventually substituted in the second half. It has now been announced that the surging defender will miss up to ten weeks of action.

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Kolasinac was the presumed starter at left back. With Nacho Monreal only just returning from his post-World Cup break in the final week of preseason action, it was thought that the Spaniard would not be fit enough to start the season, with Kolasinac, who, prior to his injury, had featured in more International Champions Cup minutes than any other player in the squad, set to start. Not anymore. But Monreal didn’t feature at all against Lazio on Saturday. Ainsley Maitland-Niles did, instead.

That as much as confirms that Maitland-Niles will start at left back next weekend — Monreal hasn’t played a single minute of preseason football. It would be a huge risk to throw him into the fire like that. But, actually, Maitland-Niles starting instead of Kolasinac might be the better option anyway, even if it has come as a result of an injury, which is never nice.

Kolasinac is an outstanding outlet on the left flank. His bombarding runs forward are extremely difficult to defend. He is deceptively fast, his delivery is also sneakily good, he can score goals, create chances and provide a wide option against narrow defences. The problems come at the other end.

His poor reading of the game is painfully evident. He takes up very peculiar positions that leave him exposed, he is often scrambling to recover, which can lead to rash tackles out of desperation — the penalty conceded against Paris Saint-Germain is a prime example — and he has a tendency to dive into challenges, which is brilliant when he wins them but can have catastrophic consequences when he doesn’t.

Contrast that style to Maitland-Niles. Calm and composed, he is assured in his defending, quick enough to recover when he gets it wrong. Not overly-eager and aggressive in his tackling, he waits for his moments, often happy to simply stall his opponent, rather than trying to necessarily win the ball back, which is a much safer and adept approach to one-on-one defending. He may not offer quite as much going forward, but he is still dangerous in wide areas with good pace and an ability to deliver accurate crosses into the box.

It’s a shame that Kolasinac will have to miss the Manchester City match. But Arsenal may end up being better off for his absence. Maitland-Niles was probably the better option all along.