Shkodran Mustafi has revealed that Mesut Ozil told him he’d be a perfect fit for Arsenal while the pair were on international duty with Germany at EURO 2016.
After protracted negotiations with Valencia that lasted several weeks, the defender completed his move to the Emirates 24 hours before the transfer window closed; a deal that could see the Gunners pay more than £35 million.
Speaking to Arsenal Player about the way his move panned out, Mustafi reflected on the conversations he’d had with Ozil.
“We were at the European Championship and we had time to speak.
“He told me about the club, about the team, and the things that he told me made me come here.
“I noticed that it’s a club where I can develop, where I can grow as a player.
“He said that he’s happy here, that the people are crazy for football and that it’s a team that enjoys playing football the way that he does, the way that I do.”
On his reason for moving to the Gunners, Mustafi added: “When you change a team, you obviously try to take a step forward.
“I think coming here I made a step forward because for me Arsenal is a big club, with big plays, a great manager.
“For me the most important thing was if I make a change, can I learn something? Is it going to be good for my development? I think being here, now it’s going to help me to grow as a player.”
Arsenal fans will likely get a chance to see Mustafi in action for the first time when Southampton visit the Emirates this weekend.
That’s very reassuring, but I’ll still worry at least a little until Ozil signs a new deal.
Now that Flamini is moving to London ozil will definitely sign. Was just waiting to see where the Mrs ends up before making a long term commitment
When will this damn interlull end?!?!? So eager to see Mustafi and (more so) Perez play their first game for the Arsenal
Ozil has said a lot to Mustafi about Arsenal, I think its time for Mustafi to tell him to sign a new contract.
Us registering a string of good results from now until the new year trumps the ozil-contract worry, atleast on my things-to-worry-about list, for now.
does anyone else feel that Wenger’s future not being sorted has something to do with the delays? These players love Wenger and many of them signed with Arsenal because of him.
Yes. I also think it was an issue talking to potential transfers.
‘If I sign for you, will you be there next season?’
I’d guess the managers answer would have been something along the lines of ‘Well that will largely depend on the team plays and the results we get…’…
*depend on how the team plays
Or, “me staying here next season would largely depend on if you accept to sign for us”.
@lorenzo…can’t agree more!
😀
I’m pretty confident that Mesut Ozil will stay with us. He seems to genuinely like the club. He has won a plethora of trophies and does not seem too motivated by money or HAVING to win every trophy under the Sun. I think he is content with competing and being the pivot of a good team. He gets to play his football, in his favoured position, for a great club who play some nice football. So long as he is the main man, I think he will be happy here.
No wonder we don’t win anything if the players aren’t bothered about winning trophies.
I think the point was rather that he has already got a WC, EC, CL, la Liga (and bundeslige?) winners medals, so isnt looking to win much other than the PL title.
Ozil hasn’t won the Champions League.
Nor a European Championship, if that’s what EC means.
All his senior honours, excluding Super Cups: One league title, four domestic cups, and the 2014 World Cup.
He did win an u-21 Euro title though.
Add the two 2 FA Cups
He’s already added them where he says 4 domestic cups. Either way if he has that attitude, which I doubt he does, then I don’t think it’s something we should be praising.
The best footballers want to win everything, every game, every trophy, every prize. That’s why they are the best. I’m pretty sure Ozil is the same.
That would be the part that says “four domestic cups” – two in England, one apiece in Germany and Spain.
I didnt think that winning a trophy once should kill the hunger to win it again
What I meant was that, unlike players like Samir Nasri or Robin van Persie or Cesc Fabregas, Ozil has already won quite a bit. He would not consider his career a failure if he had to not win another trophy. I am not saying that he does not want to, or that he is content with failure, I just think that HAVING to win trophies is not something that motivates him. I think him being the best at what he does makes him happier. And that sort of player is rare to find.
I want this club to win things. Can we please win the BPL this season, FA cup wins are cool, so can we have that one again this season. but the League Cup final for the youngsters and the CL trophy for the first team would look really sweet at the new stadium.
Personally think Holding shud keep his place this weekend and give Mustafi at least a week to train alongside and get to know Kos a bit
I definitely think Mustafi should start. He’s played in 3 different leagues and does have a considerable amount of experience at 24 so I don’t think there would be a problem throwing him straight into the team.
I thumbs-upped both of you because I’m such an excited Gunners fan right now. Everything is great. Mustafi is the best, holding is the best, basically I’d even be happy with Perez at CB in my current state. Xhaka for president!
COYG!
I expect to see Perez and Mustafi both on the bench against Southampton, but I only expect Perez to get into the match. Mustafi will only have been training with the squad for two or three days.
Ozil with an assist… standard
Hahahaha! Comes to him naturally!
Can imagine Ozil post a selfie with a spliff, 8 bit pair of shades and a big gold chain photo-shopped onto it, with a confuse looking Mustafi in the background and the caption “Deal with it” and “Ya Gunners Ya” on Twitter 24 hours after his move to Bayern is confirmed on the .com in July 2017. I obviously kid, I love Mesut as much as anyone and hope he signs a deal for 10 years and retires with us as much as all of us. Just had to make the joke considering the slight tinge of angst his contract… Read more »
Ozil already publicly stated last few days that now contract talks will countinue with arsenal and were put on hold because of the euros, why would he said that if he dosen’t want to sign new contract and leave.
Ozil deserves to be at a club that actually challenges for the Champions League and the title…
I’m sure he won’t sign a new contract if it’s the same old story this season.
Why does Ozil ‘deserve’ to leave for a supposedly bigger club? How would that make him any different to the other glory hunters like Fabregas, Nasri or RVP?
Even when he says that he is happy here because of the way the team plays and because of the people surrounding him. Even when he tells Mustafi to come join him. Even when he came to Arsenal from Real Madrid, when he surely would’ve had the chance to join Chelsea or the Manchester clubs, you’re still sure he won’t sign a new contract. Now that’s what I call a pessimist.
Or a know-it-all. More so than the actual man himself.
It baffles me how people still don’t realise how controlled players are by the club. Ofcourse Özil will praise the club, he is a proffessional under contract so ofcourse he is not gonna thrash talk the club.
Costa praised Athletico before joining Chelsea, Scweinsteiger praised Bayern before joining United, Suarez always spoke highly of Liverpool before joining Barca, Henry proclaimed his undying love for Arsenal before joining Barca and the list goes on forever.
How often do you see pro players talk shitabout their current club? Pretty much non existent.
blah blah blah…….. coherent enough?
Can rarely take seriously anything a player says in the media, it’s all mostly just PR shit for fans to fuss over, ‘ooo, what a nice guy this player is, time to buy a shirt’. Let’s see if Ozil signs a new deal.
Apparently people prefer the fantasy
Good bloke mesut.
When I was a kid all of the retired sports stars sold cars … some of them linoleum.
I miss linoleum salesmen. “Good afternoon Missus. Would you care for a few feet of this down your back passage?”
skrofan muscrafi?
Was going to thumb u down then I saw your name
Who are Thumb U? Any good?
Arsenal will always play the best football!
It’s players like Ozil and Sanchez that can bring in world class players.
I hope they can tie Ozil and Sanchez down to long term deals!
I am not too worried about Sanchez. He is a great player who contributes a lot to the team but is not irreplaceable. I will be disappointed if he leaves but we can find someone to fill his shoes. Ozil on the other hand….
That’s crazy, it’s a bit like saying you can do without one of your hands. We finally getting to see what Sanches and Ozil look like now they have their “La Liga beef” sorted.
Sanchez just led his country to two straight Copa Americas. With the USA and Mexico added in, that’s a very strong tournament. And he won the Golden Ball.
He’s clearly one of the best attacking players in the world. World class.
It would suck if he left.
If Özil was selling the club to Mustafi during the Euros, why did the deal have to wait until the end of the transfer window? I normally tend to think it is the player that stalls the new contracts, but our transfer business indicates otherwise… Or could it be that case that Özil just always tell every random person he meets how great the club is? In that case no worries on the contract 🙂
Because you don’t understand how transfers work? Neither do I.
There could be a huge amount of factors influencing this transfer, and maybe Valencia refused to sell until they could find their ideal replacement. No point in questioning Arsenal in a public forum like this if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
It is heart-giving to hear ozil convincing players to join our club.this is a clear picture that he loves arsenal.it is down hearting that he is hesitating in signing a new deal.
Mesut Ozil, assiting everywhere for team’s cause.Love this guy.
Him and Sanchez both need to re-sign, that’s how great teams are created. We build not buy…
You do realise we just spent upwards of a 100M right?
And we bought Ozil and Sanchez. And we have no first team players that came through the academy but other than that yeah we don’t buy.
Seriously good business by m. Wenger over the last few years. Without breaking the bank. World class players which if they can gel, they can compete for top honours. More optimistic than for a long time.
Just imagine the price of Ozil in this current market. 40 million is actually looking like a steal.
If that piece of overrated shit p*gba is 100 million then Mesut should be equal to what 300 million or valuation of entire Manure??
He needs to run aroun’ more.
So He’s assisting with dreams too!
Soft power. Lest we forget Metersecker was also instrumental in applying soft pressure to have Ozil come to us. He could have signed for any of 7 clubs willing and able to pay more than us. That Wenger waited till end of 2013 window was in part due to Bale’s move but also bc it worked in our favour for some of these other clubs to have spent their money already. Still we had to ensure that the player was motivated to come to us. Plus ensuring we had sufficient money to fight off any potential suitors also complicated the… Read more »
In terms of contract, again the club has managed to tie down Alexis and Ozil at start of contract to a good length of time.
Contract for Ozil will run out by the time he is 29yrs, we should already be on look out for a successor by next season. He will be 28yrs with one year left to run.
Of course any contract extension on his part will be linked to our own performances and success…which includes Ozil’s own performances too.
Mesut will stay and I think we are going to be OK.
Assisting in every possible way!
Welcome Mustafi, Ozil’s feet does the talking and we’ve all bought into Ozil’s Arsenal Dream.
Win things win things, COYG !!! More trophies, bigger trophies now!!!
I’m going to get massively thumbed-down for this, but imagine how pissed off we’d be if it was toni kroos telling mesut ozil how perfect a fit he’d be for real madrid. Or how pissed off we were when it happened with cesc. Nevertheless, I’m incredibly glad mesut did!
I personally can’t remember us looking this good in terms of depth, any ideas out there about how we’re going to play? Formations? BPL shape Vs CL, rotations to “manage” keeping the moral of the players high. That sort of thing, I mean, what are the club’s expectations of the squad, the manager, and what the players would like to achieve on a personal level, like, how many goals are we to (fairly) expect from the front three? Not the players, per say, but the positions? Left wing- 25 goals for the season, central striker 40, right wing 25. The… Read more »
meant to say “3 goals a game” funk….