Four of the new Arsenal loanees saw their loan club in action on Tuesday night, but Matt Smith was the only player to make his debut.
![Arsenal's Smith makes debut, 3 other deadline-day loanees miss out 1 Charlton Athletic v Portsmouth - Sky Bet League One - The Valley Charlton Athletic s Matt Smith right comes on for the substituted Andrew Shinnie during the Sky Bet League One match at The Valley, London. Picture date: Tuesday February 2, 2021. Copyright: John Walton](/static/uploads/2021/02/1000599810-1024x754.jpg)
Of Arsenal’s deadline-day loans, Joe Willock, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Matt Smith, and Zech Medley all had fixtures the following day on Tuesday.
Unfortunately, Willock and Maitland-Niles were both registered too late to make the squads for Newcastle United and West Bromwich Albion respectively. To make matters worse, they both watched their new teams lose 2-1.
Medley made the bench for Kilmarnock against Celtic, but he didn’t get onto the pitch. With Kilmarnock going behind within half an hour and losing 4-0, there wasn’t much call for a tactical centre-back substitution to turn things around.
Still, Medley might feel encouraged about his chances of regular games from now on, with the pair in front of him on Tuesday shipping those four goals.
That left Matt Smith, who was also on the bench for Charlton Athletic against Portsmouth. Once again, he could only watch as his new team went behind 3-1.
Smith then came on for the final 13 minutes plus injury time. He completed 80% of his passes and made one tackle, but couldn’t drag Charlton back into it.
Here are the fixtures up next for each of the four players (times in GMT):
- Medley – Saturday, 6th February, 15:00 – St. Mirren (A)
- Willock – Saturday, 6th February, 15:00 – Southampton (H)
- Smith – Saturday, 6th February, 15:00 – Rochdale (A)
- Maitland-Niles – Sunday, 7th February, 12:00 – Spurs (A)