Arsenal

Arsenal fans slam Maitland-Niles

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Arsenal fans have taken to Twitter to express their annoyance at Ainsley Maitland-Niles for his performance in the Gunners’ 2-2 draw with Watford on Sunday.

The full-back endured a sorry afternoon against the Hornets, and even an assist for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s second wasn’t enough to save him from a battering on social media.

The 22-year-old has been Unai Emery’s go to man at right-back in the absence of Hector Bellerin, but he struggled to make a positive impact at Vicarage Road, being largely wasteful in possession and unconvincing in defence.

Here are some of the best tweets from disgruntled fans.

Maitland-Niles has been pretty good since coming into the side in place of Bellerin, but he hardly covered himself in glory on Sunday afternoon.

So far this term he has averaged 2.5 tackles and three clearances per match, as per Whoscored, as well as 1.8 successful dribbles and 1.3 key passes.

But all of that decent form seemed to go out of the window against the Hornets.

There were flashes of what he could do, make no mistake, and his movement to get in behind the Watford defence for Aubameyang’s second was inspired.

But what will set him apart and make him a top tier defender will be his levels of consistency. At the moment, as was proven on Sunday, they are not high enough.

You would hope that Bellerin will be back in action soon, and while it will be good for him and Maitland-Niles to spur each other on through competition, you would assume that it will be the Spaniard who wins the long term affections of his manager.

His average Whoscored rating has never fallen beneath 6.70 in an Arsenal shirt, and has regularly exceed 7.00, but at the moment, that is the kind of sustained high level consistency that Maitland-Niles can only aspire to.

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