Unai Emery says he’s had a number of conversations with Shkodran Mustafi in which he’s told the German he can leave the club.
After three seasons in which he hasn’t managed to eliminate the flaws from his game, Arsenal are ready to let the £35m signing from Valencia go, but the Spaniard says that he’d use the 27 year old if needed.
The Gunners have signed David Luiz from Chelsea, pushing Mustafi down the pecking order, and at this point it feels like it would be the best thing for all parties if a transfer could be arranged.
Speaking ahead of Sunday’s Premier League opener against Newcastle, Emery said, “I spoke with him when we finished last season, I spoke with him when we started pre-season and I spoke with him also two weeks ago saying maybe there was the possibility he can leave.
“But I do not have doubts if he needs to play because he is a good player. Maybe we decided to be more competitive in each position, at centre-back with David Luiz, with another player in the middle with Ceballos, with Kieran Tierney, with Pepe.
“I think being more competitive we can respond better in the season. Some players maybe they can play less with that situation and can leave.
“But it is one decision taken with the player, with the club, with the team. At the moment he is here and really if we need, he plays with us.
“I have confidence he will do well.”
Mustafi has been linked with a move to Ligue 1, with Monaco tipped to be interested, while he could be tempted by a move to Italy where he previously spent time with Sampdoria.
The window in Italy closes on August 18th, while in France, Spain and Germany it’s September 2nd.
Hardly a vote of confidence from Mr Emery regardless of what you think of the player.
“I have confidence he will do well.” Somewhere else presumably!
is there no club out there who can help us? i think we’ve been very nice to everyone else (juventus, barca, bayern etc.). time to cash in on our accumulated karma
I still believe there is a competent defender in there somewhere. If I was a top 6 European club I’d be interested in having a punt.
It just hasn’t worked out at Arsenal at all. And being at the emirates cup, listening to the boos, it’s better for everyone if he makes his exit. No one likes to see that kind of reaction and I don’t want to be that kind of fan. But when you fuck up time and time again, it’s to be understood.
I think he’s a top top defender well suited to leicester. 60m for jan?
I upvoted this on the basis that a top coach might be reading and think taking @ punt in thus inveterate halfwit might be worthwhile.
Doh…
*If I was a European club outside the top 6
Amazed you can try to criticise Emery over this.
It wasn’t a critic it was meant as sarcasm!
no offense but I see 0 criticism of Emery in his post.
What criticism?
People need to sometimes just read something for what it is, not with a preconceived bias.
You’d think after three conversations Mustafi would get the idea.
He probably lost concentration in the first two
Haha haha
Brilliant 🙂
Can just see him sitting in his arse as the conversation sails past
Just spat out my morning coffee laughing
Very funny
Lol
he’s not known for his judgement skills…as we’ve painfully learnt over the past 3 seasons
I have it on very good authority that each time he just raised his hand in the air and looked over to the touchline hopefully.
Emery: Mustafi, after everything, I am concluding that you can find a new a club.
Mustafi: I can? Nevermind, I’ll stay!
Quickness of thought doesn’t appear to be a Mustafi characteristic.
#FreeMustafi
Literally, free. Please. Free to a good home.
Is that his price tag? 🙂
Should’ve included him for free in the Iwobi’s buy 1 free 1 deal
Anyone else loving the new transfer deadline before our games? We can finally fully concentrate from the get go. September 2nd is absurd!
Can we? The management are still trying to ship players out before we can choose a team of captains who might not even be at the club three games into the season!
Did you see Pochettino also having a little rant about how European teams getting an extra 20 days gave them an advantage because if they wanted to be aggressive they could destabilise Premier League teams?
All fair enough points I think, but the old way was farcical
Pochettino will moan about anything.
I agree the window should be shut before the start of the season but think if it is closed for incomings then it should also be closed for outgoings too??
Shouldn’t laugh.
But I did.
I really feel there’s a decent player in there somewhere. Fingers crossed Don Raul finds him a new home. Would be best for all parties
Mustafi is a world class defender for 86 minutes but the other 4 minutes he is absolute sh*t and can cost us 3-4 goals in that 4 minute period.
Sorry to say but not even David Luiz is immune from that too.
This might be true, but the reason he’s such a favorite at Chelsea despite his errors is everything else he brings to the game, especially how important his passing is to the build-up phase.
We’ve missed that since Wengerball, and sadly Mustafi has always been overrated as passer so fans are less willing to forgive his defensive implosions.
Not sure it’s up to Raul to find him a new club; that’s his agent’s job. Raul’s is to get as much for him as possible.
Why dont we put him on Ebay and wait for someone drunk enough to buy him. The amount of times I’ve had deliverys and thought “drunk me is an idiot”. I’m certain someone will drink enough boot polish one day to buy him!
No one wants to wake up to a Yodel driver flinging Mustafi over their back fence. He probably couldn’t even hit the ground properly.
No need to throw him, he just needs to open the van doors and mustafi will come sliding straight out said van, smash straight through the fence and blame the driver. Sorry mustafi I shouldn’t get involved.
That was really funny…
Christmas has come early. This is what Wenger lacked, BALLS. He couldn’t admit a player was shit and stuck with them. He was a great manager, but a stubborn bastard. I really like how Emery is clearing out the dead wood useless players. Thank you for finally listening to the fans.
Not sure he’s listening to the fans. More that he’s trusting his eyeballs.
Wenger just keeps believing that they’ll come good and he keeps trusting them with more chances, being the compassionate man that he is. May be.
Wenger would gladly have shipped him to Inter after one season, remember?
It was obvious early on that both the Mustafi and Xhaka signings were a mess.
Arsene was def trying to sell Mustafi within a year, and he described Xhaka as a ‘very strong defensive midfielder’ when he signed, but by January he was saying “Granit really needs to work on his tackling technique”
We all have ..
But he doesn’t listen to instructions does he?
That said I don’t condone the booing if he is going to stau Id rather he had some level pf confidence and our players are human beings as well wellpayed humans but still human.
Let’s knock this only human back a bit. It’s a part of life to get jeered booed beaten or worse it’s a very dangerous and unpleasant world. Disabled people, racism and other unmoral things happen all the time by humans to humans. Part of life is rising above the flith and bullying in every day life. It’s a massive problem in society. People are horrible it’s what mankind does best. If a sports fans can’t boo a player that makes the same mistakes season after season what can we do. He got booed in friendly now hopefully is moving on… Read more »
Last time I checked, none of the illegal immigrants driving Uber’s were getting 50k a week.
Agreed mate. I’ve never understood the over-reaction to booing in British football. Compared to the bad old days of outright hooliganism, or fans in Spain throwing severed pigs heads onto the pitch like they did to Luis Figo, or someone throwing a whole moped onto the pitch at the San Siro, or the whole fireworks and flares on the field thing, whistling is literally the mildest way a crowd can communicate displeasure. In Madrid you’d see crowds of 80,000 whistling *and* waving white handkerchiefs if they weren’t happy with what they were seeing. I feel for Mustafi but football is… Read more »
Two wrongs doesn’t make a right.
Taxi for Mustafi
Again most fans do not live in reality. Its not a question whether the player wants to leave. That’s only part of the issue. Its also a question if any buyer wants to pay for Mustafi (in particular salary) As I mentioned start of summer, it will be between Chambers and Mustafi which one gets the best deal offer. BUT Chambers more likely also depends if he has intentions to stay or should an offer represent better opportunity for him. AND to be frank, neither is terribly that much better. Chambers is still postionally suspect. He was culpable for not… Read more »
BUT…you’re so fucking boring …
We’ve read all this before… and before… and before
And your mustafi hard-on persists.
Holy shit that’s the longest one yet
I swear he’s laid longer ones than that ?
Here endeth the lesson for today (tomorrow, and the day after the day after tomorrow).
Hahahaha always worth the scroll
Nurse! He’s off again!
Hahahaha
You’re making this all too complicated. It is clear to see Arsenal don’t have a group of great defenders. But Mustafi is clearly the worst of the lot. For all of Chambers’ so-called mistakes, I’ve never seen him give away goals the way Mustafi did.
He can bad defender but not as bad as ‘fans’ are labelling him!
I’m soooo pleased I don’t sit anywhere near you at the Emirates. Talking of which I’d like to suggest that we reorganise home fans into two sections; Optimists and Pessimists … trouble is the former might only be ‘half-full’ judging by my neighbours in Block 13.
I think the transfer of the summer would be Santori to another team.
Mustafi is not good enough for Arsenal but he is a person and should be respected as such. He does not deserve some of the abuse he gets. He always gives his best even if it is not good enough.
I don’t think a guy should get the booings for mistakes. I think a guy should get the heckling or booing for not owning his mistake. Mustafi too often blunders and then looks around to blame or share the blame with a teammate. Own it and most people would accept that.
Ha, didn’t even see this before I posted. Snap!
and that is why he will never improve. because instead of realising he is the one making the mistake, he tries to shift the blame.
For me it’s not just that his best isn’t good enough, it’s the constant hand-waving and blaming others that pisses me off. He needs to take Santori’s advice and return to reality (and take some responsibility and try to fucking improve!).
Looks like he’s out the door.
Can’t think of a time a manager has come out and said “I’ve told him he can go” and the player still remains a part of first team plans.
Even last year when he clearly wasn’t Ozil’s biggest fan, everything he said was positive.
When you couple it with Ornstein saying we’ve tried to sell him in EVERY WINDOW since we bought him, surely the writing is on the wall.
If we get £20m we’re laughing. That’s three quarters of a Saliba!
£20 million – that’s a pretty big ask. Of course, if potential buying clubs are as gullible as we were when we paid Valencia £35 million for him, that may be a runner. You never know.
I guess the question is: if we wanted an experienced centre back, would we buy Mustafi now? Enough said.
As long as we get the legs he won’t be much use without those
This is bad man-management. How is Mustafi going to play for him now? And now any buying club will know they are in a very strong position. We’ll probably get peanuts for him when he goes. And yeah he’s rubbish but he deserves respect from the club.
spot on! this ain’t about “lacking balls” as one of the earlier post accused of Wenger…it’s about being a little smarter in the transfer market and more importantly, a basic respect for any individual
I’m not sure why some find it hard to get the logic that if you diss your players in public, you cannot expect other sides to come in for them with the right amount.
You could tell the manager trusted Iwobi, for instance, so despite what some fans said about him, someone out there valued him at £40m. We need to have the smarts with player treatment in order to get good value when moving them on.
Emery has not done well there and should know the other players are watching too.
Why are you some of you like this? Emery: “He can leave. But I do not have doubts if he needs to play because he is a good player” This is exactly how you handle players on comfortable long-term contracts. They have most of the leverage so we have to ‘manage them out’, first by upgrading in their position, then by respecting the player enough to be honest with him about his prospects for playing time. I think what Mustafi has done on the pitch in his 3 years at Arsenal will have more impact on his market value than… Read more »
You assume that Mustafi is playing for Emery now. If you’ve seen his home performances as I have, that’s a serious doubt – and one that Emery clearly has. The truth is that we’re none the worse off without Mustafi, so let’s be without him. Mustafi just hasn’t performed as a £35 million player should. That’s not Arsenal’s fault – although it was a massive error by the previous management team to have bought him for that kind of money. Don’t forget that he’s paid a fortune in wages – supplied in part by the fans through their tickets of… Read more »
People forget the dude actually tried to leave on his accord after his first season with his…couldn’t settle in London and we apparently had a deal lined up with Inter at that time to take him!! So I don’t buy we need to be treating him with kid gloves as we boot him out the door for continual poor performance!
If he has any professional pride he’ll play at his best whenever called upon to get himself the best deal possible for his own future…kinda how the world works…
But we don’t want mustafi to play for him, we want Mustafi to leave. Making him feel unwelcome is part of that and will hopefully make him more likely to accept any offers that come in. If we keep praising him when he doesn’t deserve it he’s more likely to hang around like a bad fart and convince himself things are ok.
Read what Emery actually said, as i said the headline is clearly click bait
Koscielny one of Wenger’s best signings…. Mustafi one of his worst.
Henry? Silvestre?
He said ‘one of…’ not sure how you managed to interpret that as ‘the best ever/the worst ever’…
Thank you for not putting me on this list, mon ami!
Don’t be surprised to see this line up on Sunday
LENO
Maitland chambers Sokratis Monreal
Guendouzi Xhaka
Mkhitaryan Ceballos Nelson
Aubameyang
This formation doesn’t fill me with confidence but i expect it
And given injuries and security issues is about right. Should ?be enough!
Ceballos is injured
Well. Let’s be honest about this. If you talk about these so-called statistics suggesting that we are not better off either way – can you also provide a statistic for what confidence can add to a team? The answer is no. It’s generally harder for a team to try and regain form as opposed to maintaining it – and mustafi does nothing but suck the confidence out of the entire team and supporters. I am sure it’s not his intention to continuously make these absurd mistakes – but the fact is that he does. Booing is not nice but it… Read more »
A ruthless management team would have had to keep him if he didn’t want to leave. You can’t sell a player without his agreement, and he is entitled to see out his contract. If Mustafi recognises within himself the signs of decay as a top defender then unless he gets a ridiculous personal offer from some team (just like we gave him when we signed him) then I am sure that he would rather stay and make the guaranteed wages than go, lose that money, and potentially earn less than that elsewhere. You can’t blame anybody for having that attitude.… Read more »
I suppose if we really consequently leave him out of the PL / EL squads, he takes a very high risk for the rest of his career in case he stays. I am not sure which respectable club would be interested in a player that didn’t play a single competitive game on senior level for the last 2 years. He would still be only 29 when his contract at Arsenal ends, would probably still have 5 good year to play. If he wants to retire after his current contract, then it is of course the smartest thing to sit it… Read more »
Such non committal response. If you don’t like Mustafi because he is prone to unforced errors say so. BUT make note as well that statistically (where is 7amkickoff ?) Mustafi’s numbers are better than Luiz . Luiz leads in through ball and passing completion but Mustafi is no slouch there with effective long balls out of defense and one of the primary outlets for the backline in those sort of balls. Where he fails is no nonsense clearances and decisions to over complicate dribbling out of a challenged backline. BUT this is NOT exclusive to him alone. It is a… Read more »
Ugh if I hear that term “band aid” again ?
If no club wants him then UE should keep him on the bench or at most give him a few mins occasionally as a sub…..in the League Cup of course. Unfortunately, we’ll lose some money cos he’s losing value. Wish him well though.
The money he will earn is already gone because we HAVE to pay him unless he chooses to leave or retire. He is virtually valueless right now because the world can see he’s not the player he used to be. His reputation is in tatters, and some of that would be attributable to the Arsenal fans booing him on TV in footage that will have been seen around the footballing world. If we had excluded him from the squad in the summer we would have been able to add someone else to it, wherever they might have come from, and… Read more »
He can leave, yes, but what he lacks is the ability to do so. Like a clingy girlfriend you’ve long grown tired of, but can’t get rid off, I can see Mustafi lingering around for the coming season.
Love the ruthless approach with the players. Hope it’s the same with Emery. Don’t deliver top four this season and in general good game play, out you go!
I think he would prefer the style of football in Italy. Where there are more bodies around him. He much prefers to watch the ball than the space.
Which ball is that?
The title is real clickbait ain’t it? Emery says he is confident Mustafi can do well, the title would suggest the exact opposite. Come on Arseblog, not you too! You guys are better than this
Yes, confident he can do well…. somewhere else!
Everyone who has watched our games for the last few seasons must surely know Mustafi must go. If he ever was a good defender,he has lost all confidence and can’t even do the simple things right anymore.Nonetheless barring it being a direct question,I don’t think we need to be told Mustafi has been asked to leave. This opens him up for a public spectacle while there is a chance he may stay and be called upon to play in some of the none-critical cups.
I do go to all our home games and you’re right. I don’t know just how good he was at Valencia. I do recall reading an article at the time of the transfer saying that Spanish sources were baffled that we’d pay (the then huge sum of) £35 million for him. Sadly, they were right! He just needs to go – for the club’s sake, and for his as well. Under Wenger, we just didn’t offload under-performing players quickly enough and that damaged the team. I suspect that the new management team has a more business like (ruthless?) attitude, and… Read more »
Lots of people laying it on thick. Never seen an Arsenal defender so roundly despised. Including Squillaci. I don’t love the guy’s play, but he’s not the worst ever. And if a footballer’s confidence affects their quality, I don’t think we as fans have done him any favours. Sadly that means he’ll never reach his peak level with us and it’s now in his best interest to leave. To me, that explains where Emery is coming from when he says ‘if we need, he plays with us. I have confidence he will do well’, but it’s also a tacit admission… Read more »
You have it the wrong way around regarding fans influencing commentators. It’s been obvious from the reports of many of Mustafi’s performances (going back to 2016) that he’s simply not up to the job. Despite that, the majority of fans have, until fairly recently I’d say, still given him the benefit of the doubt. However, I would suggest that the vast majority have had enough now. I don’t think Emery’s hand has been forced. To me, he has clearly grown increasingly exasperated with Mustafi. His latest, almost comic, blunder against Barcelona in the recent friendly – only minutes after he… Read more »
Fans almost never take responsibility for anything, the reality is our fans are one more problem on top of our other ones. As much as Mustafi and mind you sokratis lets in silly goals, I would say our fans are culpable for at least 10-15 goals a season. Fans can work for u or the other team our fans work for the other team.
@Goonereality Yeah fair point actually. The fee vs performance thing. Sets a lot of expectations quite high! Sorry maybe I wasn’t to clear on the fans influencing commentators. I meant it the other way around: That Blogs may have influenced the opinions of the comments. Didn’t state it, but I meant specifically in this thread there’s a lot of venting, some not entirely fair — which is where our opinions differ. Then I thought about it a bit more — and I guess that’s always been the way. It’s been on my mind lately, especially with the current political climate.… Read more »
I guess that, after a while, a momentum builds. It can be positive with some players, the “best thing since sliced bread etc.” syndrome, and negative for others. I do feel that, in Mustafi’s case, he’s done nothing on the pitch – and can’t really be said to have tried too hard – to reverse this. It’s very probably because he can’t, which is unfortunate, but football is a business not a charity of course. Finally, I remember Gallas as well – although I’ve tried to forget. How disappointing he was when with us, particularly towards the end (the “bitter”… Read more »
“Never seen an Arsenal defender so roundly despised. Including Squillaci.”
Gallas. Rightly so.
Each like for this comment takes Mustafi’s price up by a million!
Pile in with those negative votes – we need to shift him!
I told him he could leave on Monday, packed his bags for him on Tuesday, I went and hid his boots on Wednesday, i even signed Luiz on Thursday …
Brilliant work Unai
Harsh. Can’t expect a man to hit the bricks without his boots.
Can’t expect a man to hit the bricks without having his contract paid out in full. When you’ve lost your ability as a football player you don’t give up all your promised earnings and slink off just because the crowd or the coach doesn’t like you. You stay. You earn. Then you either retire or hope to find another club daft enough to hire you just in case you aren’t as shit as you look.
YouTube clip of Mustafi defending to save any potential scouts the time:
https://youtu.be/qKxlvWOqmFs
Given the public admission about the player by the head coach, and the lack of interest for the last three windows, a loan with an option to buy seems the most likely for Mustafi. I wish him the best, but its time to move on.
Let’s just say its about time
As much as Mustafi has been a liability I can’t stand so-called supporters of our team booing anyone wearing our shirt. With a player short on confidence who we may yet have to rely on in some games, I just don’t see how this benefits anyone. Imagine it was you down there about to come on in a game to hear the clubs fans booing you… Pisses me off. When I was growing up the Gooners would support even the most average of players till their last breath.