Town captain Luke Chambers has paid new teenage team-mate Ainsley Maitland-Niles the ultimate compliment by suggesting he could play for parent club Arsenal right now.
Chambers is also full of praise for another on-loan winger, Bournemouth’s Ryan Fraser, after the pair featured prominently in Saturday’s 2-2 draw at Brentford.
The skipper, who will be the only player from the weekend starting line-up to start tonight’s Capital One Cup first round tie against Stevenage, said: "With the two new wingers it’s different to what we’ve had. Last year Tabby and Paul Anderson played a lot of games and they are two very hard-working players who helped to make us very hard to beat.
"The new boys have got that and can also add that little bit more going forward. Anyone with pace and a bit of a brain is going to be difficult to play against and I know from playing against Ryan that he’s a very difficult opponent.
"If he can get in the team every week hopefully he will build himself into the player that we know he is and can be.
"He showed it on Saturday, especially in the first half when he was coming inside and getting shots off.
"He was delivering, taking people on, shutting things down — he’s a weapon for us and Ainsley will show how good he is in the next few weeks.
"We’ve been very surprised that we’ve actually managed to get him because he’s a very, very good player.”
While Maitland-Niles, still only 17, is seen as a future star for the Gunners the Town captain grinned: "After watching Arsenal lose 2-0 at home to West Ham on Sunday — and I was an Arsenal fan when I was younger — I thought they might have wanted him back.
"He’s going to be a very good player for us and I think the guys in the background have done very well to get hold of him for us, especially for a whole season.”
Chambers stressed how Maitland-Niles, as well as Fraser, is happy to do what the pros call the ‘dirty work’ that involves wingers tracking back and being aware of their defensive responsibilities, in addition to looking to take defenders on and pose an attacking threat.
He added: "One of the first things I said to Ainsley during the first week of pre-season training was ‘Are you going to break into a sprint at any time?’ Then, after four or five days of training, we had a small-sided game and it was as if another player had walked out.
"We called him a little rash because he was getting around everyone, winning the ball back at every opportunity.
"That’s something that you possibly wouldn’t think would come from an Arsenal player because you’d be thinking in terms of technical ability.
"That’s one thing he has in abundance and when he really opens up he is one of the fastest lads in the squad, but he’s so laid back that he would probably give his interview lying on his back on the desk.
"Nothing will affect him. On the way back from Brentford, trying to get over the fact that we had lost two points, I reminded him about what happened about 25 minutes into the game.
"He had the ball on the edge of the area with four players around him and he tried to dribble it.
"I said to him ‘You won’t be doing that again will you?’ because four of them started running our way and he had to sprint 90 yards back.
"He’s willing to do that so I think it’s going to be a learning curve for him this year. The way he took to it on Saturday there are no worries for us. I imagine he could easily play 46 to 48 games if needed.”