Arsenal: Shkodran Mustafi still on better track than last year

Shkodran Mustafi put in his first real stinker of the season for Arsenal, but as it’s five matches in, it’s still safe to say he is doing just fine.

Arsenal nearly kept a clean sheet against Newcastle United at St. James Park no less, but at the end, with nothing left to hope for, then Magpies were able to nod home a goal thanks to some poor positioning and awareness from Shkodran Mustafi.

It capped off what was a really poor 90 minutes for the German, as he was a bit of a trainwreck for the entire affair, not least of all because of his bizarre slip that Sokratis had to clean up for, and what a clean-up job he did.

That makes it one dud in five matches for Mustafi, who was one hell of an enigma last year, and with this performance, the thin ice that he was walking on has begun to creak and shatter just a bit more. We are all remembering just how bad he can be at times.

But pump the brakes on that a bit, if you would. Because Mustafi’s currently rocking a 20% implosion rate this season, with the other four matches actually proving to be decent. He wasn’t his best against City, but it wasn’t on the same level as his previous failures.

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And in between those matches, there has been a nice string of quality outings where he even forced me to ask the all-important question: Had he found himself some consistency?

Now we know that the answer to that question is “no,” but the fact that he was inching closer to actually boasting some consistency shows improvement. He still isn’t the reliable centerback that we so deserve to have back there, but as I always say, as long as a guy is improving, then we have little cause to truly be irate at his continued presence.

Mustafi is improving. Some may not care, as they’ve wanted him gone from the moment he arrived, but for those of us that retain open minds, know that the German has made some key improvements from last year, when you could only hope and pray that he wouldn’t completely soil himself on the defense.

This year, as mentioned, he’s not been as unstable. Call it baby steps if you want, but it’s steps nonetheless.

There is so much talent bottled up inside Mustafi. I just hope that he can truly unlock his best once and for all.