Arsenal have made a huge transfer mistake

As Arsenal slumped to a gloomy 0-0 draw at home to Burnley to cap off as dreadful of a month as they could have hoped for, fingers began being pointed.

Edu has naturally taken plenty of the flak. When there are eight Hale End graduates in the squad, five of whom hadn’t played a minute of Premier League football, and four who hadn’t played senior football for the club yet, it doesn’t reflect well on recruitment.

Even with AFCON and injuries, this squad has been allowed to stretch so thin that the above happens. Seeing a fatigued Arsenal side put in a fatigued performance shouldn’t come as any major surprise.

It didn’t need to be this collectively tired, though. While it’s an unforgiving window that poses various obstacles to overcome, the decision to allow Ainsley Maitland-Niles to leave on loan has proved costly.

Arsenal have made a huge mistake by letting Ainsley Maitland-Niles join Roma in the January transfer window without a replacement being signed

On the face of it, it was a smart deal. By avoiding a buy option they open a market for him in the summer when after six months of Serie A football he will hopefully have attracted a few admirers. Mikel Arteta’s reasons for letting him go confirmed it was an admirable decision based on the player’s wishes and welfare.

He’s also contracted to Arsenal and would have avoided the stretching of a crucial area of the pitch that prompted players being pulled out of position and performing in suboptimal conditions. Partly due to his departure there has been in increase in injuries, while there would have been no need to field Thomas Partey less than 48 hours after he was playing in Cameroon.

Letting Maitland-Niles go made complete sense for Arsenal on the basis of one point and one point only: they signed a replacement. The move was already going to deplete a weakened area of the squad. That much was known before it was sanctioned, and while red cards aren’t exactly foreseeable, the risk of losing more bodies in that area was.

It has cost Arsenal. Should they fail to land the midfielder they sorely crave window then they only have themselves to blame for plunging the squad into a position where the cards all had to be drawn in their favour for success.

Maitland-Niles wouldn’t be winning Arsenal matches they’ve come up short in across January. That much is sure. But he would have prevented unnecessary positional and shape changes that have impacted performances.

It was a huge mistake.