Anyone who’s played football will always have their preferred position on the pitch, but it often helps to be versatile and it can lead to younger players getting more chances in the first team.
It’s so important to eventually nail down a regular role and perfect it as time goes on, but that hasn’t happened for Ainsley Maitland-Niles and it still feels like nobody really knows if he’s at his best as a midfielder or as a wing-back.
When he first broke through he was billed as a midfielder and he looked more comfortable there during a loan spell with West Brom last season, but a report from Sky Sports has indicated he might need to revert to the full-back role again.
That’s due to interest from Everton who are hoping to sign him on loan, but it’s suggested that they would plan to play him in defence so he would clearly need to accept that’s where his playing time would come from.
It possibly leaves him in an interesting spot where he could potentially play for a bigger club in a position he doesn’t prefer or he could drop down to a bottom half team and play in midfield, but that would also depend on what other options he has.
Sky claim Arsenal are happy to let him go out on loan so this certainly has the potential to happen, but he’s a good Premier League player so you have to think there will be interest from other teams.