Arsenal Vs Manchester City: Not Shkodran Mustafi’s redemption shot

Shkodran Mustafi was awful against Manchester City on Sunday. But Thursday night is his shot at redemption. He must show consistency if he is to ever prove that he has the ability to anchor this Arsenal defence.

Arsenal were calamitous on Sunday. There is no other way to put it. Individual errors, laziness, an insipid attacking performance that lacked neither creativity nor directness. They were all shortcomings that were painfully prevalent in a thoroughly lacking performance.

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But there was no one who was more blameworthy than Shkodran Mustafi.

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The German, who was tasked with anchoring the heart of the Arsenal defence, decided to wander his way back from an offensive free-kick and stand in front of, not behind, Sergio Aguero. With his teammates lured into a false press, Claudio Bravo pumped the goal kick long, over the head of Mustafi, who was encouraged under the ball by a little Aguero nudge, and perfectly in place for the Argentine to scamper onto and lob over David Ospina, who had stranded himself in no-man’s-land thanks to his indecisiveness.

Firstly, Mustafi chose to stand in the utterly wrong position — Aguero cannot be offside from a goal kick; there is no reason for him to be standing in front of him. Then, once he had been eased out of the play, rather than chase back and recover, at least with the intention of making the chance as difficult as possible, he decided to flail his arms in the air at the referee, begging for a foul. His hopes were, rightly, not answered.

And now, just four days later, the Gunners must face off against the Premier League’s most dominant force again, this time at the comfort of the Emirates and in the league. But it should not be considered as redemption for any of the individuals, including Mustafi.

The problem with the Arsenal players and resultant performances has not been their individual displays, although they have been abject on occasion. It is the comprised inconsistency that comes with a series of good performances followed by a disastrous one. How can one team have such variance from one match to the other?

This is especially true for centre-halves. Defending is about performing at a consistently high level each and every game. Just the one mistake in each fixture can scupper the whole team’s efforts. If that then begins to occur on a frequent basis, it can be catastrophic for the collective defence.

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So while Mustafi might want to redress the balance on Thursday night, and a good performance would certainly be nice to see from him, it is not redemption. Redemption comes through consistency over time, something that he has not yet been able to show.