Arsenal: Shkodran Mustafi making it hard to fight these feelings

We’ve spent years being conditioned not to trust Shkodran Mustafi, but the Arsenal man looks like the model defender and it’s becoming harder and harder to fight the feelings.

Arsenal‘s defense has been trying to move on and recover from the hefty investment in Shkodran Mustafi for four years, but in case you haven’t noticed, he has become something completely different under Mikel Arteta.

After keeping three straight clean sheets alongside David Luiz, Mustafi was the rock that held this defense together against Everton. Throughout he chaos of the match, Mustafi never lost his cool, he persisted in his defensive solidity and he was the only defender that didn’t make an individual error that either led to a goal or nearly did.

I saw Mustafi doing things against a very energetic, confident Everton that I haven’t seen an Arsenal defender do since prime Laurent Koscielny.

First and foremost, it was Mustafi who was cleaning up after his teammates, and not the other way around. There were several sloppy moments from David Luiz, Hector Bellerin and Bukayo Saka, but Mustafi was always there to clean up.

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Even in the one mistake he did make, on an over-the-top ball that so often beat him in the past, he was so quick to mop up after himself and see the ball out of danger.

Then there was how well Mustafi controlled the ball. This has always been a strength of his, but his ability to spot safe, yet inquisitive balls is something worth bragging about. It’s been truly remarkable watching that passing flourish off the backboard of better defensive stability.

He would track opposing runs, but only until he had seen them into an offside position, then he’d let them go. Like a buzzer in his head went off. It was so precise.

He would fill space where needed, whether that meant tracking runs, as mentioned just above, or just filling in a passing lane that was about to open up, his foresight was tremendous. He just always knew where to be to snuff out an attack before it ended dangerously.

With all these clear improvements, I’m having trouble not believing in Mustafi. I have these feelings that I’ve fallen into this trap before, but despite those feelings, I’m still likely to go for it. This man looks like the model defender, and as long as that keeps up, so too will my optimism.