Football is littered with examples of players who weren’t fancied by a team who eventually allowed them to leave for a small fee, and it always leads to the same question – why did they let them go?
The obvious answer is that they simply weren’t good enough at the time and a team didn’t see enough potential to stick by them, so it’s easy in hindsight to lambast clubs for certain decisions.
Arsenal faced that situation recently with Serge Gnabry who’s now a Champions League winner with Bayern Munich, and The Daily Mail have indicated that they could be making the same mistake if they let Ainsley Maitland-Niles go for about £20m.
It’s actually easy to argue that Arsenal made the right decision to let Gnabry go – he wasn’t playing often and he had a horrible time at West Brom, while he needed a few years with Werder Bremen and then Hoffenheim to develop and earn that move to Bayern.
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Maitland-Niles is clearly a decent player, but the differences between him and Gnabry show that it’s probably not going to be the same situation.
Gnabry left after only 18 first team appearances at Arsenal while Maitland-Niles has now played 100 times for The Gunners, so it’s not like he hasn’t had enough chances to convince the club that he’s good enough.
You can argue that the current Arsenal man is actually too versatile for his own good, so it means he’s often used to patch up a side and it’s prevented him from developing and establishing himself in a certain role.
The only way the comparison with Gnabry will come true is if he goes somewhere else and really starts to excel in a specific role, but that’s a risk that Arsenal will need to weigh up.
Nobody really moaned about Gnabry leaving at the time and it’s unlikely too many fans will get angry if Maitland-Niles goes, so it’s another situation where only time will tell.
What do you think Arsenal should do with Maitland Niles? Let us know in the comments
Maitland is going nowhere arsenal,will be mad to sell him £20 million.You can’t even buy a chicken that amount.Maitland is a strong technical player and fast,and he’ll get better.
tell them so that they can wash that Cham on their brains….
Arsenal are a very useless club. They will never learn from their mistakes. Trust me Niles will come back to hurt Arsenal if he’s been sold. That kid has a very bright future, even Arteta admitted that. If only Niles was in Chelsea, Man City or Liverpool, he’ll be sold at an exuberant price. Just because it’s Arsenal, only 20million is slapped on him. Useless club
we have to keep Niles and holding…… even if is to take them on loan their is no worry… but you may find that arsenal will keep such big names like David Luiz who just have one year contract in that defence but next January they may end up running to get fringe players on a short loan period whenever they get injuries. be example like Chelsea, when they were banned from purchasing players, they relied to their players who were young at onloans.. arsenal use you brains, why do you like disappointing you fans every time and then….. Niles is our unteachable asset… bure Kabisa nyinyi……..
Maitland Niles – mid table player for a mid table team. Not good enough.