Brighton tracking Arsenal midfielder ahead of summer transfer window

Maitland-Niles, who can operate in defence or midfield, played a key role for Arsenal in their FA Cup semi-final victory against Manchester City last Saturday but his game time for the Gunners has been limited this season.

The 22-year-old featured as left wing back against City and his versatility could well prove a useful asset for Brighton head coach Graham Potter who regularly changes formations during matches.

Brighton confirmed their top flight status last night with a 0-0 draw against Newcastle and no doubt work is already going on behind the scenes to strengthen the Albion squad.

Maitland-Niles is a product of Arsenal's Hale End Academy and also made 30 appearance for Ipswich Town during a loan period in 2015/16. He represented England youth teams from under-17 to England under-21 and won the 2017 Fifa under-20 World Cup with England.

“He’s a player who can play in many different positions, we have discussed the things in my opinion that he can improve or adapt to his game because he has incredible quality,” Arteta said last week.

“He has every quality that you need to be a football player to play the highest level and he just needs to do it in a little bit more of a consistent way, but he is someone who can adapt to any position as well.”

Maitland-Niles still has three years to run on his current contract at Arsenal and he would likely command a higher fee than the £3m Brighton paid Chelsea for Tariq Lamptey last January.

Potter spoke last week of the importance of getting their recruitment just right this summer in order to avoid another season of relegation anxiety.

"That’s the million dollar question I guess. And the thing is with recruitment there is very rarely a silver bullet, there is very rarely an absolute problem solve out there.

"Everything comes with work. Just because it’s £20 million, it doesn’t mean they don’t take time to settle, They don’t take time to understand the country, the league, the country they are coming from.

"So all things, there are so many factors to take into consideration. We just have to be really, really clear in terms of what we want, what types of player we want, how they can help us, what we can do to improve the starting eleven because sometimes it’s easy to accumulate players.

"It’s about how you can improve your team is the challenge. Historically we have been quite good at doing that. So that’s the challenge for us in this window.

"The challenge of the job is you have to try to improve and the transfer window is a time that gives you a chance to move players on, to bring players in.

"That’s how it is, it’s a natural part of football. So you want to use those windows as a time to improve. It’s not as straightforward as the main focus is on the group that you have, but clearly there are opportunities to say ‘okay, what can we do to get this team from a from a high-thirties, low-forties points tally up to the next batch of points’.

"That comes not totally with recruitment. It comes with improving your idea, improving your environment internally. But clearly improving the players in your squad can help that as well."