Ainsley Maitland-Niles: Goodbye Arsenal, hello uncertainty (2025)

“It’s been a great journey but it has come to an end. It’s time for a fresh start and to find a new home. I’m looking forward to that, but at the same time my head’s not quite there yet and it’s all about what’s happening now with Southampton.”

Ainsley Maitland-Niles is speaking to The Athletic the day after Arsenal’s 3-3 draw with Southampton. He watched from home as his loan side faced his parent club, the one he had been at since the age of six.

In some ways, Maitland-Niles’s ineligibility to play on the night was apt for where he is in his career: caught between two homes. Now, after four loan spells, he will start a new chapter this summer.

Maitland-Niles has not spoken to anyone at Arsenal since pre-season, but the decision to part ways was mutually agreed months ago. His contract expires in June and Arsenal decided against triggering their option for a further year. It means Southampton’s clause to buy him at the end of his season-long loan is void.

“I’m just fully focused on trying to help us stay up, stay positive and win games,” says the 25-year-old. “Towards the end of the season, I’ll have something else to think about.”

The theme of Maitland-Niles’ career has been the trade-off between positional flexibility and stability. Among his closest friends, there is a joke that he only needs to play goalkeeper and striker to complete the set. His ability to play in multiple positions is appealing — he has played six different roles at Southampton, ranging from centre-back to right midfield — but that versatility has also brought inconsistency.

“I’ve spoken to other players who are used in lots of positions and it can affect your confidence,” he says. “It can impact your ability to affect the game, just because you’re being moved around and you’re used to doing something else, instead of what you should be doing.

“Midfield was where I wanted to play, but I was never a person that would be like, ‘Oh, no, I don’t want to play at full-back’. If you give me the opportunity to be on the pitch then I’m going to try and grab it with both hands.”

Becoming a father to a baby boy at the start of the season has, as he puts it, helped Maitland-Niles “grow up a lot just by having him around” but it has also increased his desire for stability. Irrespective of Southampton’s toils and state of flux, Maitland-Niles would be open to staying beyond his loan. Interest in him goes back to deadline day in January 2021, when Maitland-Niles ended up joining West Bromwich Albion on a short-term loan.

“I had a conversation about coming here the first time around,” he says. “Southampton has always looked like a good club to me. They’ve always played good football — a similar style to Arsenal. It’s a great club to be at and progress and get some minutes under my belt. Of course, if they were to make an offer, I’ll be more than happy to stay.”

Such is Maitland-Niles’ optimism, it may be easy to overlook the challenging start he first had at St Mary’s. Maitland-Niles was left out of initial matchday squads as he grew accustomed to then-manager Ralph Hasenhuttl’s distinctive, “ball-orientated” principles.

“The way Ralph introduced me into the fold and showed the way he likes to do things was brilliant,” he says. “We sat down quite a few times just me and him during one-to-one meetings. He would show me clips of other players in the same position doing what he wanted me to do and then use some training clips where I wouldn’t be doing exactly what he wanted. So he was on me every day in training, screaming at me because he wanted me to learn his way quickly.”

Maitland-Niles was one of 15 players signed over the previous two windows and, despite having just turned 25, he was one of the more experienced players who came in. Though interrupted by injury, he has made 23 appearances under three different managers this season. The latest, Ruben Selles, is a big advocate.

“If you compare the squad from last season to this, there were a lot of senior players that left,” Maitland-Niles says. “It is an inexperienced side at the moment. When you have senior players that have been in the Premier League for a number of years and know how it is and then replace those players and bring in a lot of young talent, it’s going to be hard.

“But their development of playing in the top league in the world will help them. It’s been a tricky season but it’s just due to inexperience and a bit of naivety.”

Looking back at the managers Maitland-Niles has played for, he credits Arsene Wenger with “seeing something that I didn’t see myself at the time”. Then Wenger’s replacement, Unai Emery, helped Maitland-Niles start transitioning from a central midfielder to a player adept at operating in other positions.

“When Unai came in he was very energetic — similar to Mikel — and very enthusiastic in how he wanted us to play. I would have liked to have played more under him, but I was important in some big games. He was a great manager. The club should have given him a little bit more time.”

Maitland-Niles spent the second half of last season on loan at Jose Mourinho’s Roma. All 12 of his appearances came at wing-back, but playing in a country where he could not speak the language for a manager like Mourinho taught him some more lessons. “He doesn’t really speak to a lot of his players and most of the players were speaking Italian. It was a difficult experience, but one that I was really happy to take on and I loved the challenge.”

For a player still trying to fully establish himself, Maitland-Niles’ achievements and silverware are impressive — he has won the FA Cup and Europa Conference League, has a Europa League runners-up medal and has played five times for England.

“That FA Cup win was a very emotional day,” he says. “We really stuck together. You know when you are playing well — you’re not scared to get on the ball, you want it in any situation. When you feel like that, it’s like you can do anything.”

Maitland-Niles is unsure what the future holds. After missing the game against Arsenal, he will return to the fold in time for a crucial month for Southampton.

“When you’re in and out of the team, it’s not easy to have consistency,” Maitland-Niles says. “But just being one of the players that plays a lot of minutes helps with it and builds confidence. The main thing is having confidence and it’s not always been easy to hold on to that. Playing regularly contributes a lot.”

(Top image: designed by Samuel Richardson; photo by Paolo Bruno via Getty Images)

Jacob is a football reporter covering Aston Villa for The Athletic. Previously, he followed Southampton FC for The Athletic after spending three years writing about south coast football, working as a sports journalist for Reach PLC. In 2021, he was awarded the Football Writers' Association Student Football Writer of the Year. Follow Jacob on Twitter @J_Tanswell