Arsenal: Shkodran Mustafi Would Not Start Over Mertesacker
Arsenal is showing a clear trend with their new signings and it’s very evident that, with Mertesacker healthy, Mustafi wouldn’t be starting.
Arsenal‘s loyalty in their trusted stock of players is equal parts admirable and frustrating. Wenger has always made it perfectly clear that if you stay with him and don’t royally muff up your chances, you will always have chances to play.
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And even if you do royally muff up your chances (Theo Walcott) there will still be plenty of opportunities for you. Perhaps they might even pay off (Theo Walcott).
This crop of summer signings is hitting that wall of loyalty incredibly hard. Lucas and Granit Xhaka have been trying to kick down Wenger’s Great Wall of Faith but their efforts have been futile. Nothing seems to give.
Lucas is facing the toughest fight, having to whittle his way through Alexis, Alex Iwobi, Theo Walcott and Olivier Giroud while not even knowing which position he is most likely to be used at. His best shot is going to come in the secondary competitions or in the event of an injury.
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Granit Xhaka should have faced an easy entrance into the starting XI but Wenger has been overly insistent that Cazorla and Coquelin, or Cazorquelin or Coqzorla or whatever you want to call it, is too powerful to be undone. It’s hard to argue with that logic but still, it would be nice to see what we spent so much money on.
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The man that has had the easiest path is Shkodran Mustafi. The most expensive signing of them all, it may therefore make sense that he has waltzed into the starting XI, but all he had to do was beat out Rob Holding – another new signing. So he was essentially gifted the role.
In that time, he has had some debatable starts but, for the most part, he has been solid. His offensive abilities and athleticism are clear to see and his defensive abilities are pretty obvious too.
That being said, if Per Mertesacker were healthy, Mustafi would be facing the exact same wall as Lucas and Xhaka. The Big Injured German (B.I.G… nice!) always gets his shot in the starting XI for Wenger and with the lackluster season he had last year, no doubt big Per would be looking to make up for it with his best possible stuff.
It will be interesting to see how this is handled when Per returns to health in 2017. I feel like even Wenger would find it hard to justify sitting Mustafi after the majority of the season just to get Mertesacker back in there, but crazier things have happened.
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