Arsenal: Shkodran Mustafi Becoming Santi Cazorla Of Defense

Arsenal needed someone to step up, they’ve needed it all season and beyond. And just when we thought no one would, the hero Shkodran Mustafi flew in.

It amazes me how unlikely it is to see someone step up and take the game into their own hands at Arsenal. Alexis Sanchez tries. Bless him, he tries, but even he can hit the wall at times.

The Gunners were desperate for someone to do something, to actually go out of their way to impact a game, perhaps disobey some Arsene Wenger instructions, and just take the game and make it theirs.

It’s not like we are wanting for candidates. Mesut Ozil is a superstar. Aaron Ramsey can be prolific. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has as much talent as anyone on this team, as does Danny Welbeck. But no one has gone out of their way to up the ante, be fearless, and just chip away at a match that the team truly needed (which is all of them).

That is, until Manchester City. While it ended in a 2-2 draw that was both frustrating and fair, the main story (positive story, that is) was the heroic, often reckless antics of Shkodran Mustafi. A couple of days ago I wrote that he had gone unabashedly rogue, but there is more to it than that.

The mistakes that he did make were rather obvious. He was overly-aggressive with seemingly harmless up-field aerial duels. He pushed too far forward with the ball.

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But when you really get down to it, I would much rather see someone doing way too much than someone doing way too little or just enough. Especially at this point, when everyone at the club seems content to just do their jobs and nothing else.

Mustafi, rather than just doing enough to get by, or doing what his position requires, took hold of the game, pressed the issue, took chances and in the end, that made all the difference. He was the most influential player out there. He set up the first goal and scored the second and in the process, he showed us what it is like to actually have a batman figure, willing to put it all on the line for the club.

And it happened again against West Ham. As if Wenger saw the light, Mustafi was given more freedom than ever before to bombard forward and essentially slip in next to Granit Xhaka to form a midfield base. He contributed to the attack and become like a deeper pivot, the Santi Cazorla between the defense and the midfield.

What made Cazorla so special was that he was able to link up to parts of the formation, that midfield and the attack. While that link is still a work in progress, the link now between defense and midfield, which we didn’t even know we needed, has been solved.

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That wild unpredictability he had against City, even the mistakes, was such a productive, welcome sign and hopefully it will have long-term effects on the squad as a whole. Those effects were already seen in the following match. He has grabbed a hold of the spotlight and cast it on himself. Let’s see what happens next.

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