Shkodran Mustafi

[Sims]

Completely agree with Callum

Would argue David Luiz is top of the pile. Sokratis is a lump of shit. Can barely defend and looks like he has a club foot when the ball is at his feet

[Santi]

Luiz has been shit for years at Chelsea and is shit now at us, all he can do is those incredible long balls. You're all tinted cos Luiz hasn't been here more than 3 months, plus he's not f***ked up for a couple of games but he's already cost us 3 goals this season.

Probably the same amount of goals that Mustafi directly cost us all last season but, as I said, he gets shat on for the mistakes like v Palace and has been here longer so expectation, is for some reason, higher.

Anyway he'll keep performing in the lesser games and eventually show that he's probably the 2nd best CB we have at the moment, although would admit not much between Papa, Musti and Chambers. Luiz for me is below them all and should only be considered for DM.

[Alexis]

https://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/s ... 90317.html

The man who was mocked and attacked in England sits in a kebab restaurant in the north of London in the furthest corner and smiles. There is diet cola in cans and ice cubes in a self-service jar. Here near the underground station "Golders Green" Shkodran Mustafi likes to eat with his team mate Mesut Özil. This is where Özil and Sead Kolasinac fled after they had narrowly escaped a robbery at the end of July. Mustafi, defender of Arsenal FC , feels safe in this place.

The 27-year-old is the most expensive German central defender. Arsenal paid 40 million euros for him in 2016. Mustafi became 2014 World Champion with Germany in the final against Argentina. But for the past three quarters of a year he has been a controversial figure for the Londoners. And when the German Football Association (DFB) will play Argentina again on Wednesday (8.45 pm RTL/Liveticker SPIEGEL), Mustafi is no longer an option for the national coach.

After mistakes in the past season, the frustration of many Arsenal supporters on Twitter and Instagram was released, so that Mustafi eventually blocked the commentary function. Arsenal coach Unai Emery declared in the summer that Mustafi should leave the club. But he stayed.

Now, for the first time, the defender talks about criticism and dealing with emotions as the hardest thing in football.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Mustafi, are you the second worst defender in the world?

Mustafi: No, I don't think so.

SPIEGEL: The Spanish sports newspaper "Marca" recently had its users vote for the worst players of the year. With 150,000 votes you came in second behind Phil Jones of Manchester United.

Mustafi: I would think about it more seriously if it had been a survey among the best coaches in Europe.

SPIEGEL: The survey shows how much your reputation as a defender has suffered. What has happened in recent months?

Mustafi: In the first two years after my move to FC Arsenal in 2016, things went very well for me. I saw myself as a top performer. But shortly after Christmas 2018 there was a kink. I made a few mistakes and they caused a chaos that I had never experienced before.

SPIEGEL: You mean the 1-5 win in Liverpool at the end of December 2018?

Mustafi: I had missed three weeks injured and then went into this game without a training session with the team because the coach needed me. At halftime it was 1:4, I didn't look good a few times and injured myself again. Then I got a lot of negative comments from Arsenal fans on Instagram and Twitter. And articles were written in which I was harshly criticized.

SPIEGEL: A penalty kick you caused, a failed defensive action that led to a 2-3 defeat to Crystal Palace - and there were more mistakes. Somebody wrote on Twitter that you were playing like a roller-skater. On an Arsenal fan channel, supporters demanded that the club sell you.

Mustafi: I'm self-critical enough to realize that I made those mistakes. I can also deal with harsh criticism. But the criticism has escalated and become irrational. I have become a target. At some point people even blamed me for a defeat in which I hadn't played at all.

SPIEGEL: An article appeared in the tabloid "The Sun" in mid-August. A fan had photographed you in your car in front of the Arsenal Stadium and had written on Twitter that you had blocked the way to the pub for Arsenal fans with your Ferrari. Headline of the article: "Blockdran Mustafi".

Mustafi: That was the climax of this madness. I wasn't in the squad, but I wanted to see the game. On the way to the stadium I stopped briefly and asked a steward if I could drive through. He said, "Wait a minute and then let me through. That must be exactly where the photo was taken. But of course I didn't actively block the way to the pub.

SPIEGEL: But there was also criticism of you from the football establishment. The former Arsenal player and 1998 French world champion, Emmanuel Petit, called you the "King of the Blunders".

Mustafi: That annoyed me a lot. It's one thing when fans or the media criticise you. But it's something completely different when an ex-player, who knows how hard it is sometimes on the field, says something like that. I expect those players to be more sensitive and to see what this sharp criticism can do. In the past, it might have been in the paper for a day and then people would have forgotten. Today it's on the Internet and it's going to haunt me for the rest of my career. Actually, former players like Petit shouldn't need to make a name for themselves by making condescending comments about current players.

SPIEGEL: There's a YouTube video, a fan-produced summary of your mistakes at Arsenal. It's called "Mustafi must leave". The video was clicked 1.8 million times. Did you see it?

Mustafi: No. I also had to protect myself.

SPIEGEL: How did you deal with it?

Mustafi: There were days when I really doubted something about myself. But at some point I realized that I was mentally strong. Something my wife said helped me a lot: "If you were really as bad as people are making you, you would never have become world champion and Arsenal player. Something must have brought you here." Since then I've been able to deal with it better.

SPIEGEL: You became 2014 World Champion after being nominated for Marco Reus shortly before the tournament. Then you said, "The hardest part of our job is dealing with the emotions." Can you do it today?

Mustafi: It remains the most difficult thing in football. When you're on top, you have to be careful not to fly away. So you can't really rejoice. When you're down, you have to be careful not to go crazy. I have now experienced both.

SPIEGEL: As a professional, is it better not to allow emotions at all?

Mustafi: No. You have to learn to use emotions correctly. When I was flying high, I used the positive emotions to improve myself. They inspire me. And now that I'm down, the negative emotions should also motivate me. I said to myself: I don't want to sit in the dressing room again and feel guilty about my colleagues. That is what drives me.

SPIEGEL: As a professional, how do you learn to deal with your emotions? Did you get psychological help?

Mustafi: No. I had the feeling that I could get through it myself. For me it would have been red alert if it had ruined me so much that I wouldn't have wanted to play anymore. If I hadn't been able to laugh during training. But that wasn't the case. I had further friends at my occupation. And my family helped me.

SPIEGEL: Are players perceived differently today than in the past?

Mustafi: Football has become more inhuman. Social media has also contributed to this, because anyone can express themselves without a clear name. People can dump their frustrations directly on us.

SPIEGEL: As a player, you also profit a lot from social media. They can stage themselves and their advertising partners there. You can become even more of a brand.

Mustafi: That's true. Nevertheless, I think there is a limit. If it's no longer about sports, but only about discrediting someone to get a lot of likes yourself, then it's over. I would like to see more restrictions in the future. What is on the Internet will never disappear. And I have concerns that something like this will also affect my children at some point.

SPIEGEL: Insults from fans, statements from your coach Unai Emery this summer that you should leave the club. And yet you are still an Arsenal player. Why?

Mustafi: In the summer there were considerations to change the club. But there wasn't an option that all sides would have been happy with. Arsenal also attached some conditions to a possible departure despite the statements. And I knew: The next change is extremely important in order to write a positive chapter in my career again. If I move somewhere where it doesn't really fit, the situation couldn't improve much. So I stayed. I am open for the future - also for the Bundesliga.

SPIEGEL: The German national team will face Argentina in a test match on Wednesday. They were invited only once after the 2017 Confed Cup. How does something like that work? Will national coach Joachim Löw call and explain why he's not betting on you anymore?

Mustafi: There was a phone call before the 2018 World Cup. The coach told me that I wasn't there. But that was already clear to me, because I wasn't invited before. I also don't take it for granted that I will be invited. There was no more detailed conversation afterwards.

SPIEGEL: Would you have liked that?

Mustafi: I like it when people tell me what I need to improve. But first of all I have to get more minutes at Arsenal. In the Europa League and in the League Cup, I played the entire games and we did not concede a goal. For me, that's a ray of hope that things are looking up again.

basically most arsenal fans are c****. guy knows his mistakes and doesnt need others to tell him. if hes not good enough, its up to the manager to sort or get rid.

All the shit calling is going to have negative effect on players and continue to contribute to an unstable mental state and performance. people tend to forget they are humans too. We may be seeing something similar with xhaka

[VCC]

As long as they've got a good leap it doesn't matter

Mertesacker is a perfect example, about 10 ft tall but can only jump about 3 cm which makes him more vulnerable in the air than Kos is for example

He never jumped that high that's a gross exaggeration lol

[Jedi]

https://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/shkodran-mustafi-vom-fc-arsenal-ich-bin-zur-zielscheibe-geworden-a-1290317.html

The man who was mocked and attacked in England sits in a kebab restaurant in the north of London in the furthest corner and smiles. There is diet cola in cans and ice cubes in a self-service jar. Here near the underground station "Golders Green" Shkodran Mustafi likes to eat with his team mate Mesut Özil. This is where Özil and Sead Kolasinac fled after they had narrowly escaped a robbery at the end of July. Mustafi, defender of Arsenal FC , feels safe in this place.

The 27-year-old is the most expensive German central defender. Arsenal paid 40 million euros for him in 2016. Mustafi became 2014 World Champion with Germany in the final against Argentina. But for the past three quarters of a year he has been a controversial figure for the Londoners. And when the German Football Association (DFB) will play Argentina again on Wednesday (8.45 pm RTL/Liveticker SPIEGEL), Mustafi is no longer an option for the national coach.

After mistakes in the past season, the frustration of many Arsenal supporters on Twitter and Instagram was released, so that Mustafi eventually blocked the commentary function. Arsenal coach Unai Emery declared in the summer that Mustafi should leave the club. But he stayed.

Now, for the first time, the defender talks about criticism and dealing with emotions as the hardest thing in football.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Mustafi, are you the second worst defender in the world?

Mustafi: No, I don't think so.

SPIEGEL: The Spanish sports newspaper "Marca" recently had its users vote for the worst players of the year. With 150,000 votes you came in second behind Phil Jones of Manchester United.

Mustafi: I would think about it more seriously if it had been a survey among the best coaches in Europe.

SPIEGEL: The survey shows how much your reputation as a defender has suffered. What has happened in recent months?

Mustafi: In the first two years after my move to FC Arsenal in 2016, things went very well for me. I saw myself as a top performer. But shortly after Christmas 2018 there was a kink. I made a few mistakes and they caused a chaos that I had never experienced before.

SPIEGEL: You mean the 1-5 win in Liverpool at the end of December 2018?

Mustafi: I had missed three weeks injured and then went into this game without a training session with the team because the coach needed me. At halftime it was 1:4, I didn't look good a few times and injured myself again. Then I got a lot of negative comments from Arsenal fans on Instagram and Twitter. And articles were written in which I was harshly criticized.

SPIEGEL: A penalty kick you caused, a failed defensive action that led to a 2-3 defeat to Crystal Palace - and there were more mistakes. Somebody wrote on Twitter that you were playing like a roller-skater. On an Arsenal fan channel, supporters demanded that the club sell you.

Mustafi: I'm self-critical enough to realize that I made those mistakes. I can also deal with harsh criticism. But the criticism has escalated and become irrational. I have become a target. At some point people even blamed me for a defeat in which I hadn't played at all.

SPIEGEL: An article appeared in the tabloid "The Sun" in mid-August. A fan had photographed you in your car in front of the Arsenal Stadium and had written on Twitter that you had blocked the way to the pub for Arsenal fans with your Ferrari. Headline of the article: "Blockdran Mustafi".

Mustafi: That was the climax of this madness. I wasn't in the squad, but I wanted to see the game. On the way to the stadium I stopped briefly and asked a steward if I could drive through. He said, "Wait a minute and then let me through. That must be exactly where the photo was taken. But of course I didn't actively block the way to the pub.

SPIEGEL: But there was also criticism of you from the football establishment. The former Arsenal player and 1998 French world champion, Emmanuel Petit, called you the "King of the Blunders".

Mustafi: That annoyed me a lot. It's one thing when fans or the media criticise you. But it's something completely different when an ex-player, who knows how hard it is sometimes on the field, says something like that. I expect those players to be more sensitive and to see what this sharp criticism can do. In the past, it might have been in the paper for a day and then people would have forgotten. Today it's on the Internet and it's going to haunt me for the rest of my career. Actually, former players like Petit shouldn't need to make a name for themselves by making condescending comments about current players.

SPIEGEL: There's a YouTube video, a fan-produced summary of your mistakes at Arsenal. It's called "Mustafi must leave". The video was clicked 1.8 million times. Did you see it?

Mustafi: No. I also had to protect myself.

SPIEGEL: How did you deal with it?

Mustafi: There were days when I really doubted something about myself. But at some point I realized that I was mentally strong. Something my wife said helped me a lot: "If you were really as bad as people are making you, you would never have become world champion and Arsenal player. Something must have brought you here." Since then I've been able to deal with it better.

SPIEGEL: You became 2014 World Champion after being nominated for Marco Reus shortly before the tournament. Then you said, "The hardest part of our job is dealing with the emotions." Can you do it today?

Mustafi: It remains the most difficult thing in football. When you're on top, you have to be careful not to fly away. So you can't really rejoice. When you're down, you have to be careful not to go crazy. I have now experienced both.

SPIEGEL: As a professional, is it better not to allow emotions at all?

Mustafi: No. You have to learn to use emotions correctly. When I was flying high, I used the positive emotions to improve myself. They inspire me. And now that I'm down, the negative emotions should also motivate me. I said to myself: I don't want to sit in the dressing room again and feel guilty about my colleagues. That is what drives me.

SPIEGEL: As a professional, how do you learn to deal with your emotions? Did you get psychological help?

Mustafi: No. I had the feeling that I could get through it myself. For me it would have been red alert if it had ruined me so much that I wouldn't have wanted to play anymore. If I hadn't been able to laugh during training. But that wasn't the case. I had further friends at my occupation. And my family helped me.

SPIEGEL: Are players perceived differently today than in the past?

Mustafi: Football has become more inhuman. Social media has also contributed to this, because anyone can express themselves without a clear name. People can dump their frustrations directly on us.

SPIEGEL: As a player, you also profit a lot from social media. They can stage themselves and their advertising partners there. You can become even more of a brand.

Mustafi: That's true. Nevertheless, I think there is a limit. If it's no longer about sports, but only about discrediting someone to get a lot of likes yourself, then it's over. I would like to see more restrictions in the future. What is on the Internet will never disappear. And I have concerns that something like this will also affect my children at some point.

SPIEGEL: Insults from fans, statements from your coach Unai Emery this summer that you should leave the club. And yet you are still an Arsenal player. Why?

Mustafi: In the summer there were considerations to change the club. But there wasn't an option that all sides would have been happy with. Arsenal also attached some conditions to a possible departure despite the statements. And I knew: The next change is extremely important in order to write a positive chapter in my career again. If I move somewhere where it doesn't really fit, the situation couldn't improve much. So I stayed. I am open for the future - also for the Bundesliga.

SPIEGEL: The German national team will face Argentina in a test match on Wednesday. They were invited only once after the 2017 Confed Cup. How does something like that work? Will national coach Joachim Löw call and explain why he's not betting on you anymore?

Mustafi: There was a phone call before the 2018 World Cup. The coach told me that I wasn't there. But that was already clear to me, because I wasn't invited before. I also don't take it for granted that I will be invited. There was no more detailed conversation afterwards.

SPIEGEL: Would you have liked that?

Mustafi: I like it when people tell me what I need to improve. But first of all I have to get more minutes at Arsenal. In the Europa League and in the League Cup, I played the entire games and we did not concede a goal. For me, that's a ray of hope that things are looking up again.

basically most arsenal fans are c***. guy knows his mistakes and doesnt need others to tell him. if hes not good enough, its up to the manager to sort or get rid.

All the shit calling is going to have negative effect on players and continue to contribute to an unstable mental state and performance. people tend to forget they are humans too. We may be seeing something similar with xhaka

Part and parcel of the social media era of football, sadly. Same thing happens with managers when they get a bad string of results. The pressure and abuse just piles and piles on you until you crack. Have to feel for Mustafi and even Xhaka and AMN. People are sheep and will post abuse just to farm likes.

[Santi]

Ozil and Mustafi both broken by negative media. Hopefully Musti can recover but this is why I think he should leave, because our fans don't change their opinion regardless of performance, he will always be the scapegoat.

Musti could play 30 perfect games then make 1 mistake and suddenly he's top c*** in no time. Same for Xhaka but he's not even good at his best.

[themessiah]

Ozil and Mustafi both broken by negative media. Hopefully Musti can recover but this is why I think he should leave, because our fans don't change their opinion regardless of performance, he will always be the scapegoat.

Musti could play 30 perfect games then make 1 mistake and suddenly he's top c*** in no time. Same for Xhaka but he's not even good at his best.

If we include Ozil, who should make way from the bench? I'd much rather we continue to give opportunities to Martinelli and Willock.

As for Mustafi Same fans who turned on him.. Same fans who insulted mustafi nd are now sulking up becos of one interview...lol

[Santi]

been defending mustafi the whole time already before this interview but alright

[Rockape]

No question the bloke is a top defender, but for the odd brainless moment that has now defined him. There have just been too many of these moments for the team and the fans to continue trusting him.

His only chance is to come back slowly, by continuing in the cup games, hopefully avoiding stupid errors and building his confidence back up. Then perhaps he can be given opportunities to show he’s able to play with 100% concentration for 100% of the game in the PL.

[Losmeister]

Ozil and Mustafi both broken by negative media.

\

phuk em both. if the team psychologist can't help, i've no use.

[Losmeister]

if you are a pro baller and dumb enough to read stuff... smh....

you've got the $ and the time to be doing something better....

then its obvious your head aint where it should be...

[Jedi]

Nah. I'm sorry, but I don't think i can muster a Mustafi redemption arc. Can we just get rid of him, please? Even if he has a purple patch he will go full r***rd sooner or later and derail our season. Just get rid.

Relevant post. I don't want him as a backup. I want him to leave the club. It's best for him and It's best for Arsenal.

[alexafc12]

You know what. Unai is happy to completely exclude Mesut. But for some reason starts Mustafi every league cup and Europa League game.

WHY

He shouldn't be anywhere near the first team.

[UFGN]

Jamie Carragher just ended his career

[Santi]

Messed up for the OG but so did Holding and more obviously Kola. Seemed to do alright after that.