Arsenal: Shkodran Mustafi price has to come down

Arsenal were unable to move on some of their deadest dead weight, including Shkodran Mustafi. Unfortunately, this probably has to do with price.

Arsenal‘s defense has been unsurprisingly error-prone this season, with David Luiz doing his usual shenanigans and Sokratis being Sokratis. But despite the steady supply of mistakes, Shkodran Mustafi has not been a culprit, and that’s because Unai Emery and the guys in the backroom have been trying to sell him.

But it didn’t happen. Mustafi will remain in an Arsenal shirt, or at least in a suit near the bench, for the foreseeable future, at least until the turn of the new year.

Going into the summer, Mustafi ranked with Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Mesut Ozil as the three guys that we most needed to get rid of. He was also the guy with the most value, being still so young himself, and it was reported that the asking price was near £27m.

Apparently, he wasn’t sold because of a lack of “serious” options, which makes me think that the biggest hang-up was a price tag that didn’t match the output.

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Part of me still believed that Mustafi could be sold for that much, taking a chunk out of what we paid for him. I mean, the guy still has tremendous physical capabilities, but it’s the mental lapses that have caused him to sputter. My logic was that outside of the high intensity of the Premier League, he would still be a useful piece for another club, but no such luck, apparently.

It may come down to lowering that price tag. I know early in the summer we here at Pain in the Arsenal kept harping on how the price really didn’t matter, as long as we moved him along.

That was before I saw Krystian Bielik go for £10m. And Alex Iwobi go for near £30m. Surely Mustafi could fetch a decent fee, I thought.

Wrong.

Whatever the way forward, getting rid of Mustafi has to take priority. It isn’t so crippling as Ozil’s, since his contract isn’t a big, mean monster, but it’s just the spirit behind actually moving on. We can’t do that with him lurking.

This defense needs to be given the freedom to improve, and that falls on Calum Chambers and Rob Holding primarily. Whoever comes in addition to that is welcome, but we know enough about a lot of these guys to know they aren’t a part of it.