Arsenal: Shkodran Mustafi will make Laurent Koscielny obsolete

Arsenal’s defense has been massively suspect this year, but if they have to plan for the future, it needs to be Shkodran Mustafi they build around.

It seems like a topic that everyone wants to avoid. This whole defensive thing, Arsenal just aren’t good at it. They haven’t been for awhile. But rather than fix it, it looks like Arsene Wenger would rather just pile on the attackers. Which is why tactical decisions like he made against Tottenham are baffling.

Play to your strengths, not your weaknesses, right?

That said, when you have such an easily identifiable weakness, it would make almost too much sense to address the problem directly, rather than tiptoe around it.

I kind of understand why that approach wasn’t taken in January. It’s a big ask to completely re-do your defense while the season is underway. But in the summer? It’s time to reassess what stays and what goes and, like it or not, we have to think practically.

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Between Shkodran Mustafi and Laurent Koscielny we have two very similar defenders. Both are athletic, aggressive, smaller in stature and, for lack of a better word, reckless and positionally defunct.

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When you look at the seasons they have had this year though, Mustafi has been unquestionably superior and, in the spirit of this “new Arsenal,” I feel like that has to mean breaking down the current duo in favor of a more useful one. That means that Koscielny could fall by the wayside, assuming that the back four is here to stay.

This would indicate a need to get a centerback who is the opposite of Shkodran Mustafi. Replicating the old Koscielny/Per Mertesacker duo, which was actually very stoic in its prime, is a fine model to build off of.

But again, in the spirit of the future and in rewarding what is working and understanding that emotion shouldn’t play that big of a part in first-team roles, it should all be built around Mustafi. He is so much more than just a capable centerback with the potential to be one of the top athletic defenders in the world. He is a leader on the pitch and how often do we talk about how few of those we have?

I love Koscielny and think he can still fight for the spot, but his play time should be limited anyway given the injury problems he has had.

In terms of who the Gunners could latch onto, well, that’s the tricky part. I love the idea of Kostas Manolas, Johnathan Tah or Kalidou Koulibaly, but they are all fairly aggressive centerbacks of a similar vein as Mustafi.

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That said, Mustafi is at the far end of the aggression spectrum, so even a middle of the road guy could balance him out well.