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Football London
Football London
Sport
Tashan Deniran-Alleyne

The reason Ainsley Maitland-Niles is free to face Manchester United despite Aston Villa red card

Arsenal had to come from behind to beat Aston Villa on Sunday afternoon in a game which had plenty of positives and negatives for Unai Emery to mull over.

In terms of positives, Matteo Guendouzi's second half performance, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang getting on the scoresheet yet again and Nicolas Pepe opening his account following his club record £72m move in the summer transfer window.

All of which was done with 10-men - one of plenty negatives.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles was giving his marching orders shortly before half-time for two bookable offences, but there's been some confusion as to which game he will be suspended for.

The Gunners welcome Championship outfit Nottingham Forest to the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday night before a big Premier League clash against Manchester United at Old Trafford next Monday.

And the confusion seems to be over whether or not Maitland-Niles must serve a ban in the Premier League or in the Carabao Cup.

Well, the situation has been cleared up thanks to Arsenal.com .

Upon releasing their pre-match team news, it's been confirmed that the versatile midfielder will miss the game against Forest, but will be available to face the Red Devils.

A statement reads: "Suspended for Tuesday night’s match against Nottingham Forest, after receiving red card on Sunday."

(Michael Steele/Getty Images)

Maitland-Niles' absence does mean that Emery will have to shuffle his options at right-back.

One being to hand a recall to Hector Bellerin, who made an appearance for the Under-23's last Friday following eight months out through injury.

Otherwise, Calum Chambers could get the nod with either Shkodran Mustafi or Konstantions Mavropanos partnering Rob Holding in central defence.

Prior to getting sent-off, Maitland-Niles was at risk of being substituted by Emery.

"I was thinking about the possibility of changing him in the first half," the Spaniard told reporters. "Why? It's not easy to play with one yellow card in defensive situations with one player like Anwar El Ghazi, very strong at running back our defence.

"For the second yellow card he touched the ball first, I was thinking it was not a red card but we need to accept that decision and work with one less player.

"Our challenge in the first half was to play here with one less player and how we can respond and how we can do one step ahead in our thoughts, with our quality also and take possibility to come back.

"We did that.

"I couldn't have nothing to say to Ainsley for that action."

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