Arsenal Vs Napoli: Guess who was missing

Arsenal were excellent in Thursday night’s 2-0 win over Napoli. And guess who was missing from the team? Yep, you got it. Shkodran Mustafi.

Laurent Koscielny missed Arsenal’s last two matches coming out of the March international break with a bruised left foot. With Unai Emery having almost exclusively shifted to a back-three formation, the loss of a centre-half was more substantially felt.

Find the latest episode of the Pain in the Arsenal Podcast here — Napoli brilliance; top four chances

Koscielny’s replacement in those two matches, Shkodran Mustafi, is hardly the most reliable deputy. And it proved in both instances, with his slow-releasing distribution and propensity to make positional errors, lunging into needless tackles, repeatedly putting his teammates into uncomfortable situations.

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On Thursday night, however, Koscielny was fit enough to return to the starting XI, anchoring the back three. Sokratis moved to the right side, where Mustafi had been playing, with Nacho Monreal continuing on the left. Immediately, Arsenal looked markedly more secure, in and out of possession, forcing their way to a commanding 2-0 victory over a very good Napoli team.

It would obviously be harsh to attribute the improvement of a whole team and defensive unit on the omission of one player. Football is a team sport and the Gunners had plenty more problems than just Mustafi on Sunday. But it is undeniable that they looked a whole lot more confident and composed in every aspect of the game with Mustafi sat on the sidelines. And the reasons for this are rather simple.

First and foremost, Koscielny is the best defender at the club. His playing and Mustafi’s not is obviously going to have a major impact on the cohesiveness of the unit as a whole. But more than just the captain’s presence at the heart of the back three, the shifting of shape it allowed was also important.

Moving Sokratis out of the centre, where his eagerness to win the ball back can be a vulnerability, and shifting him to the right side of the back three, where his long speed is invaluable and his aggressiveness can be utilised to its best effect, and combining that with Koscielny’s calming demeanour makes for a well-balanced backline. Pairing Sokratis and Mustafi is not the wisest move. They are similar players with similar tendencies. And those tendencies were exploited, especially by Everton.

The other key difference was the collective play in possession. Mustafi is horribly slow to play simple passes. It may not seem like a major thing to note, but playing even five-yard passes first time instead of with your third or fourth touch, as Mustafi often does, can make all the difference in instigating attacks from deep. And that is what Koscielny does. His passing was excellent against Napoli, freeing both Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Sead Kolasinac on countless occasions.

All in all, this adds up to a rather plain picture: Mustafi is not good enough for Arsenal. And if you didn’t know that by Thursday, surely it is clear as day now.