Arsenal: How many times can Shkodran Mustafi weed himself out?

Arsenal’s defense won’t improve as long as they are counting on Shkodran Mustafi. So many much longer can we really expect to see him back there?

Arsenal managed to win against Bayern Munich, but there was one familiar sight that we have seen too many times before—Shkodran Mustafi being Shkodran Mustafi.

He was a walking mistake back there, with poor distribution, baffling decision making, and all the other fixings of a nerve-ridden outing by the German, once touted as our solution to our defensive woes, now suddenly the embodiment of our defensive woes.

I could sit here and say that this is Shkodran Mustafi’s chance to prove himself this preseason. That Unai Emery is giving him another chance to earn his spot in the starting XI. But that just doesn’t make sense anymore, does it?

The point of internal competition is to see who rises above and sets themselves apart, and to see who falls below and weeds themselves out of contention. But in order for this to work, you have to actually act on the weeding and the rising and promote those that rise and remove those that weed.

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Which is why I can’t figure out why Shkodran Mustafi continues to get opportunities and thus continues to weed himself out.

Here’s the thing—I really like Shkodran Mustafi. I defended him for the better part of a season, perhaps more, I lost track (I might have blacked out). I thought that his patent athleticism was worth investing in. Even last year, at the start of the year, I tried really hard to believe in him. But there comes a point where you see the same baffling mistakes time and time again and you realize that he isn’t just unlucky, this is just who he is as a defender.

He is the Mesut Ozil of the defense, albeit without the ridiculous wage package. He continues to hold on, to get minutes, to be a big part of this club and all I can ask myself is when we can finally breathe easy again at his removal from the team. That’s all this comes down to. With Ozil and with Mustafi it’s the same thing. We are constantly nervous wrecks that they are going to screw up.

If you don’t act on those failures, nothing is going to change. The same way this attack cannot move forward with Ozil still in the midst, this defense can’t move forward with Mustafi still there either.