As quoted by The Mirror, Sam Allardyce has shared details of a conversation he had with Ainsley Maitland-Niles before he joined West Brom.
The Arsenal loanee reportedly had a number of options in terms of teams he could have joined on deadline day in January, but Allardyce swayed him by promising to play him in his favourite position.
The West Brom boss claims that Maitland-Niles told him that he wants to play in midfield, claiming that he was surprised by the fact he doesn’t want to play as a full-back.
“I spoke to Ainsley on the fact, where do you want to play and what is your favourite position?” Allardyce said.
“The reason Ainsley chose West Brom is because he said: ‘I play in midfield, I want to play in midfield, I don’t want to play full-back’.
“It was a little bit surprising to me because he has played for Arsenal there a lot and England.”
This is certainly an interesting development.
Maitland-Niles came through as a midfielder, but as Allardyce says, he made his name as a full-back, but it seems as though he’s a little bit fed up of playing in the defence.
To be fair, the full-back role isn’t particularly glamorous, so we can understand why he doesn’t want to play there.
Whether or not this affects his future at Arsenal remains to be seen, but with the Gunners having so many midfielders on the books, it could certainly be a factor in his development at the Emirates.
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