Ainsley Maitland-Niles is attracting interest from Nottingham Forest over a permanent transfer football.london understands.
The newly-promoted Premier League club made an enquiry to Arsenal about the 24-year-old earlier this week, but it is thought that the deal is still in its early stages. Forest, who play with a back three, are thought to be exploring their options in the transfer market as it appears increasingly unlikely that they will be able to sign Djed Spence permanently from Middlesbrough amid interest from a host of teams, including Tottenham.
For his part, Maitland-Niles has repeatedly expressed a desire to play regular first-team football at this stage in his career and has admitted that he would be willing to leave Arsenal in order to make that happen. He attracted interest from Everton late in the transfer window last summer but ended up staying after talks with Mikel Arteta. After only obtaining limited game time in the first part of the campaign, though he was allowed to join Roma in January, but then only ended up making 12 appearances for Jose Mourinho's side.
