Arsenal: Ainsley Maitland-Niles has never been more relevant

Ainsley Maitland-Niles has had an up-and-down Arsenal career, but heading into Wolverhampton, the young man has never been more relevant.

Arsenal were left flummoxed by the efforts of Wilfried Zaha in their failed attempt at security against Crystal Palace. He was the right-sided striker, and he exploited the defensive problems caused by Carl Jenkinson and Shkodran Mustafi starting side by side.

Of course, that is a position normally held by Ainsley Maitland-Niles. Maitland-Niles would have normally been where Jenkinson was, and given his sudden uptick in defensive work, one has to wonder what might have gone differently.

There are a lot of ways to prove your worth to a club. You can perform unquestionably well for a long stretch of time. You can work your arse off, even when good form eludes you. Or, when all else fails, you can just sit out a match and watch the club suffer without you.

Maitland-Niles has now checked all three of these methods off the list. He has been performing unquestionably well for a long stretch of time, thriving in his new position, at all facets of it, both offensively and defensively.

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He has been playing hard even when the form isn’t there. That’s been a trait of his for his entire career here, though.

And now we’ve seen what a difference it makes when he isn’t in the starting XI, and how desperately we need him to hold on to that role, simply because as of right now, there is no viable alternative.

Going up against Wolverhampton, there are a lot of players that I can’t wait to see back in the starting XI. Sokratis and Granit Xhaka top that list, but Maitland-Niles isn’t far behind. Not only is he doing enough for himself, but he’s been prolific enough to cover for the slight dip in form we’ve seen out of Sead Kolasinac recently too, which is a gift I never thought we’d get. Or need, for that matter.

Maitland-Niles has learned to defend incredibly well, his attacking play has never been in question, and in a match like we have coming up against Wolverhampton, we are going to need someone just like him, who can do it all.

With how long we were wondering just what Maitland-Niles future held, it’s nice to now be at a place where we know exactly what it holds. And it’s right here and right now.