Arsenal: Shkodran Mustafi could be Mikel Arteta’s ticket to greatness

There are a lot of honors that managers strive for, but if Mikel Arteta can just get Shkodran Mustafi to work at Arsenal, his ticket to greatness is punched.

Shkodran Mustafi is the talk of the Arsenal web these days, and not for the usual reasons. He hasn’t made a catastrophic mistake, or led to the demise of an entire match by letting a simple ball over the top dismantle a lead. He’s just been really, really good.

£35m is a lot of money to spend on a defender these days, let alone nearly four years ago, when we purchased Mustafi from Valencia to be the kingpin of the future of this defense. It started well enough, with an unbeaten streak spanning 19 matches as long as he was in the starting XI, but when things went wrong, they really went wrong.

But we all know that story. We want to talk about how Mustafi, partnering with David Luiz, has kept three clean sheets in a row and not by fluke. He’s been maximizing his physical abilities and not suffering the lapses in concentration that have come to typify his time at the Emirates.

All in all, he’s been nothing short of brilliant. And at 27-years-old, with tons of time yet to give, a resurgence of hope in his future here at the club would be the equivalent of punching Mikel Arteta‘s ticket to greatness.

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It’s bigger than just maximizing a struggling player. Much bigger. We invested a lot of money into Mustafi and since then, have not invested anything close. Even as he struggled, we were still fielding him in the regular team set up because of that investment and because of the obvious fact that he is actually a very talented defender.

But all this time, no one has been able to help him put it together until Mikel Arteta.

Arteta made the defense his top priority. Even as the attack struggled, the team became harder to beat and they’ve now gone nine matches without a loss, amassing five wins and four draws in that span.

Mustafi is a massive reason why.

If Arteta can solidify Mustafi as a consistent, Premier League caliber defender, he has proven himself to be a master of maximizing talent, something that can turn the fate of a club rather quickly.

There’s still more to prove, and there is always going to be some hesitation, but the foundation has been laid.