Skhodran Mustafi

Clearly remember people on here being excited when he was named at Anfield this season.:joy::joy::joy:

Its his more shit version of ya gunners ya basically hah

Its his mediateam doing all this shite. He can barely speak english let alone write back on top in decent english.

At the end of the day every single centre back we had except for Koscielny since 2010 has been bad for Arsenal. Always felt like Gabriel had the natural ability to be a solid defender, but the high line/one-v-one stuff he suffered from.

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Mertesacker was a good signing

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Gonna celebrate like a win against Tottenham when we sell him.

Vermaelen wasnā€™t half bad in his initial few seasons till he got crocked. I think Holding can be a great defender if coached properly, the ingredients are all there.

My official guess then is that nobody will want him and heā€™ll run his contract down with us and leave on a free.

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We need to wake up to the fact he is not the only reason we are bad at the back though. Any way you look at it we field the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
We simply as a team cant absorb pressure most weeks.

Not sure what SDā€™s opinion on him would be (I agree with what youā€™ve said!), but as he was signed in 2009 perhaps heā€™s not a factor in his post that covers 2010 onwards.

I remember thinking the likes of Vermaelen and Mertesacker were often not good enough.

Iā€™d love to have them now :joy:

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I think Mertesacker was always criminally underrated by Arsenal fans and the media who never appreciated what a calming influence he was on Koscielny.

I think if we didnā€™t have Wenger as our manager with his insistence on a high line and not protecting his defence - that partnership would have gotten a lot more plaudits than it did.

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Even under Wenger, we had spells where weā€™d conceded the least goals in the league over prolonged periods and Mertesacker was usually the constant in that. If Mertesacker was playing under Mourinho I think heā€™d have been regarded very very highly across the board.

But he was slow, so he was always going to be exposed under Wenger occasionally and then get called out for it. But even then, the amount of goals conceded purely down to his lack of speed were very few. Maybe Wenger deserves some credit for that, or it was just his own intelligence to stop him getting caught so much.

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I think Mustafi has started more games than any other defender so this might indicate that Emery still thinks he could be good enough and will keep him.

No other club is going to pay his 100k a week wages so unless we give him away, which isnā€™t going to happen, then we are stuck with him.

We have plenty of CB options but none of them are top four quality, so it might be better to sell a couple of them, and use the money to get a top quality defender, to either partner Holding or Mustafi.

Itā€™s really got everything to do with the fact that Holding is out for the season, Sokratis has picked up a few injuries and Koscielny missed the first few months of the season.

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The problem is that Kos canā€™t really be relied on because of his fitness and age, although he is arguably our best CB, and Emery seemed to prefer Mustafi to Sokratis.
Also Iā€™m not sure if Holding is up to being a starter for us just yet.

Mustafi clearly isnā€™t good enough but there are a lot of other positions that need strengthening as well, and I think he could still be here next season, even if it isnā€™t as a first team regular.

Our best bet is Holding and Papa with Koss rotating in liberally depending on fitness - but after this year, you feel he is doneā€¦ we need another top CB to push Holding and/or Papa and replace Papa as he wanes - he isnā€™t a spring chicken either. If Holding doesnā€™t work out, we are proper f*cked again and back to the drawing board - another hole to fill unless Mavro is the answer.

Hopefully Medley develops into something useful - basically we are banking on at least 1 (preferably 2) of Holding, Mavro, Medley (still 1-2 years away) developing plus at least one top signing.

Really next year have to write off Koss, Moose, Chambers for CB for me. Can use Monreal as back-up left back and emergency CB.

Why do you think this?

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Because Mustafi has started more games this season than any other defender.
I know there have been injuries but Emery was starting Mustafi even when we didnā€™t have as many.

Edit: Sorry, I have just checked and Mustafi and Sokratis have started around the same.
But I still think Emery will keep Mustafi next season regardless.

I think to some degree Emery is still trying to figure out what heā€™s got. A few players probably are in that ā€œsortingā€ category I talked about in other posts. This year is a season of sorting and I reckon Moose was very much on the bubbleā€¦ hopefully now the verdict is in.