Arsenal: What does Ainsley Maitland-Niles do next season?

Ainsley Maitland-Niles’ best route to regular starts at Arsenal is at right-back, rather than in the midfield. So what happens when Hector Bellerin returns next season?

Ainsley Maitland-Niles is now 21 years old. He is coming towards the end of his second full season in which he has been viewed as a senior, first-team member. His development is beginning to get to the make-or-break stage that every young player must face at some stage. If he is to ‘make it’ at Arsenal, the time is now to deliver.

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And for Maitland-Niles to deliver, he must take the next step in his progression. And that, at this point in time, is establishing himself as a first-team regular.

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Last season, his first as a senior player, Maitland-Niles made 15 Premier League appearances, eight of which were starts. He also made nine Europa League appearances, eight of which were starts, although a significant portion came during the group stages when Arsene Wenger was rotating his team. This season, Maitland-Niles has made just 11 league appearances. But a higher proportion — eight out of 11 in comparison to eight out 15 — are starts.

Moreover, at this point in the year, he is clearly the starting right-sided defender. Stephan Lichtsteiner has been extremely disappointing, almost jettisoned from the squad altogether, while Carl Jenkinson is purely there for depth. There are questions over what Unai Emery would do should he shift to a back four with an orthodox right-back, but as long as a back three and wing-backs are used, Maitland-Niles is seen as a starter.

However, after two years as a rotational, versatile depth piece who is relied upon for around 20 appearances a season, all of which depend on injuries, fatigue and suspension to other players, Maitland-Niles must now take the next step in his development: to be the unquestioned starter at a particular position.

And this is where the crux of the problem is. Maitland-Niles is a self-professed central midfielder. But hardly any of his appearances this season have come as a midfielder, and even then, his most significant start, against Liverpool away, was as a right winger, not a central midfielder. His recent run of starts have come at right wing-back, and they have only presented themselves to him as a result of Hector Bellerin’s season-ending ACL tear.

When Bellerin returns to the fray, which is anticipated to be in the early weeks of next season, Maitland-Niles will lose his right-sided defender job and be resigned to the bench once again, waiting for injuries and the like to be given a starting opportunity once again. And that is the exact same role that he has played for the past two years.

It is a valuable role, and if that is all he amounts to be, he will still a valuable piece of the Arsenal squad. But I am sure Maitland-Niles has higher dreams than that. I am sure he is hoping of becoming a regular starter, each and every week, a star of the first XI. If he is to do that, then something must change between now and next season. Whether it will, however, is a very different question altogether.