Ainsley Maitland-Niles had a late cameo for Arsenal on Monday night.
Mikel Arteta has told Ainsley Maitland-Niles to put his ‘head down’ if he wants to be involved for Arsenal again this season.
The Gunners’ academy graduate was available to play in Monday night’s 2-0 win at Portsmouth in the FA Cup following an injury.
But Arteta left him on the bench until the 90th minute and preferred to start Sokratis Papastathopoulos – a centre-back – at right-back.
It was a clear message from the Arsenal boss, by virtue of the fact that Sokratis is in no way a natural fit for that role and yet the Spanish coach preferred him to Maitland-Niles.
And Arteta has told the 22-year-old that he’ll need to do more in training if he wants to play in senior games.
He told Football London: “Ainsley needs to put his head down, work hard and show me every day in training he wants it more than anybody else and that he wants to play for this club and fight for his place.”
This is a noble approach from Arteta.
Under Arsene Wenger, some Arsenal players, such as Shkodran Mustafi and Granit Xhaka, got too comfortable in the first XI, meaning that major errors during matches weren’t resulting in them losing their place, which enabled them in a way.
But with Arteta there seems to be a fiercely-high demand and standard, and his approach with Maitland-Niles is indicative of that already.
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