Arsenal boss Unai Emery excited by midfielder Ainsley Maitland-Niles' potential, reveals Ivan Gazidis

James Benge25 May 2018

Unai Emery impressed the trio who selected him as the new Arsenal manager with his detailed knowledge of the likes of Ainsley Maitland-Niles, according to chief executive Ivan Gazidis.

Emery was unveiled as Arsenal’s new manager on Wednesday and will have to make the most of the club’s thriving youth academy – the Gunners were Premier League 2 champions and FA Youth Cup finalists – with a budget of only £50million to play with.

Arsenal had made an ability to develop young players a key prerequisite of their hunt for Arsene Wenger’s successor and the three-person selection panel of Gazidis and heads of football relations and recruitment Raul Sanllehi and Sven Mislintat were mesmerised by Emery’s knowledge of the youth setup.

“What was really impressive was when you scratched the surface to go deeper and deeper and deeper,” he said. “If we were speaking about one of our young players, if we targeted Ainsley Maitland-Niles for example, Unai knows Ainsley.

“He’s watched him, he’s familiar with his patterns of play, his capabilities, he’s very excited about his potential and was able to talk about how excited he was to work with Ainsley, to develop him as a player.

“Very specifically, when you asked the follow-up question and the follow-up question and the follow-up question, you’d get more and more depth about how exactly he would do that, exactly how him and his team would work with an individual player to develop them into the best player they can possibly be and also within the team dynamic.

“There are a lot of platitudes in the game of football, a lot, and people can speak at a surface level very easily to sound confident and impressive. What’s impressive to me is when you scratch through that and you get deeply involved in what exactly they mean.”

Maitland-Niles made 28 appearances in all competitions for the Gunners last season, winning the man of the match award following a 2-1 defeat at Manchester United for a composed display in his preferred central midfield role.

The 20-year-old’s versatility aided him throughout the season, earning him appearances as a wing-back on both flanks, on the left of a four-man defence and in the midfield engine room.

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