The 25-year-old Englishman was once branded as a ‘fantastic’ player and viewed as one of the brightest talents in Arsenal’s academy. He starred for the first team as well in Mikel Arteta’s first season at the club, but his career hasn’t gone to plan now.
He’ll be back at Arsenal next summer and the Gunners could potentially be left with no choice but to let him go for nothing.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles could be the next Arsenal player to have his contract terminated
Arsenal have had to make a number of difficult decisions over the last few years with respect to players’ contracts.
Some of them fell out with Mikel Arteta, while others just weren’t good enough for Arsenal and nobody was ready to pay a transfer fee to take them away from the Emirates Stadium.
Since the Spaniard arrived, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Mesut Ozil, Shkodran Mustafi, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Sead Kolasinac and Willian have all had their contracts terminated and walked away for free.
Maitland-Niles could well be the next one.
The 25-year-old’s contract was set to expire at the end of this season, but Arsenal extended it by another year because they couldn’t find a buyer for him last summer. He was then sent out on loan to Southampton, and if anything, his stock has dropped even more.
Maitland-Niles has played less than 600 minutes of football since joining the Saints. He has started just four times in the league and his performance against Lincoln City in the Carabao Cup was heavily criticised by fans and the media.
Unless his fortunes change drastically in the coming months, Southampton will send him back to Arsenal, and the Gunners will be left in a really difficult position.
With just a year left on his contract next summer, Arsenal will look to sell him rather than loaning him out again. However, there were no buyers last time, which makes it extremely unlikely there will be any this time around.
That could leave Arteta and Edu with no choice but to terminate his contract as that would be the best thing for all parties involved.
