Arsenal: Shkodran Mustafi facing unnecessary test of character

It’s hard enough for Arsenal players to stay motivated, but with Shkodran Mustafi now knowing that he wasn’t wanted, his character will be tested.

Arsenal’s huge, gaping wound that no one seems able to fix is their gross lack of motivation. Any team that can drain Alexis Sanchez of motivation is a fearsome beast, and that is what the Gunners have become. Players want out, they can’t seem to build themselves up on match day and by the end of the day, apologies are posted all over social media from sad players.

Staying motivated is even tougher when you know for a fact that you were not wanted at the club. Look at Lucas Perez, for instance.

But with Lucas, he wasn’t playing. So there was no real test for him to overcome.

With Shkodran Mustafi, things are different. Shkodran Mustafi is going to play a big part in this season. He remains our second best defender and it would be senseless to exacerbate the situation and not allow him his just dues.

Knowing that he will play upwards of 2500 minutes, Mustafi will have to put aside this knowledge that Wenger was going to off him after just a year with the club. A year, keep in mind, where he went 19 straight matches undefeated and proved that, panic buy or no, he was Arsenal quality.

As I have said numerous times, every inch of wanting to sell him was unwarranted. If you didn’t want him, you shouldn’t have signed him. But since you have him, be happy that he’s a damn good defender.

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Instead, they fought hard to ditch him.

So how does Mustafi react? He showed excellent communication and was one of the few Gunners who seemed determined last year to lift up his teammates, so I’d expect him to look at this as a challenge to prove Wenger wrong, as opposed to him going out there and Ox-ing it.

The sad part is, this whole escapade was completely unnecessary. I have seen very little upheaval over Mustafi’s defensive prowess over the past year and yet he was outed as being inadequate.

For a team with defensive holes aplenty, this never made sense. And seeing as how Virgil van Dijk was never going to happen, it makes even less than no sense. Were they really going to replace Mustafi with £25m Jonny Evans?

That’s a slap in the face if ever there was one.

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Again, I have all the faith in the world that while surely this irks Mustafi, it won’t effect his play. He is a determined, ambitious player who will see it as a challenge more than a wound.

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