I don't condone booing our own players but I am sympathetic with the sentiment. Mustafi wants to do his best. So, I have respect that he is doing the best job he can.

The club has to get rid of him even at a financial loss. If its his wages, pay the difference to a club. He's going to lose us crucial points and we can't go into the season with that kind of liability. I'd take a quality conference defender any day of the week over him right now. Why can't we do that? Something has to be done. I read we have been trying to sell him every transfer window. Other clubs seem to get rid of dead weight. Why are we so different?

Which quality conference defenders to you think might do the job?

I watched highlights of the Lyon game only. I am a little concerned with our defending on their second goal. Did Koscielny play at all in any preseason games? Not saying I want to ever see him again - just curious as to what defenders we have available.

The longer this drags on the less confident I am it's actually going to happen. Am reading reports of rival bids and that we haven't come to an agreement with the player, just the club.

I said something similar before. This idea that Mustafi is the worst player of all time, that American seems to have convinced himself of, is pure claptrap. I thought lomekian did an excellent post about Mustafi a few days ago. Does American block lomekian, or would he have read it? Mustafi main problem is that he makes occasional catastrophic errors which, if he could cut out, would make him at least fairly reasonable. I accept we paid too much for him and if he can be sold for a semi-decent price, then great. But this idea American has that you could easily find someone in the Conference better than him strikes me as so stupid it’s laughable.

I’m thinking exactly the same Bromley. It won’t be too long before I’ll be very surprised if we get him.

Would have been better if Ornstein had kept his mouth shut instead of big noting himself. We might have snuck it thru. Now I have no idea.

Drags on? It was only broken less than 48 hours ago. I'm pretty sure we know we have a deal, hence Ornstein's tweet. He's been given the nod I reckon.

I think Mustafi is awful, but booing him? That's just *%^@*** dreadful.

Big high profile agents are involved so I wouldn't rule anything out at this stage.

It is quite unusual for Ornstein to go public without being pretty certain about something though. I think he did backtrack slightly in later tweets suggesting that although an agreement had been reached with Lille agreements still needed to be worked out with the player and his agents.

It is, no wonder the bloke is a nervous wreck.

Pure claptrap indeed Bernard. If there were any National League defenders ready to step into a top 6 Premier League club and do a better job than a German international like Mustafi, despite his flaws, then clubs would be queueing up. I go and see Bromley Town from time to time, and I can assure you none of their defenders are good enough for Arsenal.
If we choose to loan out Medley this summer, he would certainly be picked up by a League One club at worst in my opinion. So surely we'd be better off promoting Medley if we wanted to replace Mustafi than trawling around the non league clubs. And most of us would agree that despite his promise Medley isn't ready for the Arsenal first team just yet.

I hope you're right Darren.

Agreed, and it just seems counter-productive. I get that a q&a with the new regime turns hostile, and I think that’s pretty much fair enough. They need to understand the level of frustration that has been building for a number of years now, and even though it probably wasn’t a pleasant evening for them it comes with the job.

Booing a player, whoever it is, can only lead to creating a toxic atmosphere around the club which is the last thing we need when trying to build a new team.

To be fair to AG, a lot of fans seem to be convinced that a number of our players are completely useless. The same is being said about Iwobi, Xhaka and Mkhitaryan for example, all of whom are really good yet flawed players who I’m certain would perform well in a better side than we were last season.

I wouldn't mind replacing all of them (except for maybe Iwobi) if we could find an upgrade, but the notion that they don't even belong in the Premier League is ridiculous.

Indeed. I flagged this in a post a few days back. I don't think there is any way back for Mustafi at Arsenal now. I posted that the crowd would be on his back as soon as he made his first mistake, but now it seems they're not going to bother waiting that long. He's getting it before he has even set foot on the pitch. Which is a disgrace really, no matter how poor he is. And it helps no one, not the player, or the team as a whole. And the opposition will know it is happening and target him even more.

For his sake I hope can go somewhere else and be a good player. But it ain't going to happen at Arsenal.

We had a very young team play away to Barnet last week and we still scored three goals, winning 2-3. Barnet are in the Conference; that says something about the level of the Conference - or whatever the league is officially called now.

See Medley got on as a late sub yesterday on 86 minutes. Wonder if he had time to do anything good or bad?

I agree he’s not the only one. But as you imply, that doesn’t stop it from being utter claptrap.

Not really, he was played as a left back which doesn't really suit him. Think it was more about giving him a taste of a game at the Emirates than anything else. Looks some way off the first team, but I guess defenders take longer to develop too.

Thanks.

He's done at Arsenal. The crowd isn't going to stop booing him and its going to hurt the whole squad when it happens. I've gotten some sympathy for him (as well as the sentiment against him but booing is too far).

Is it really that difficult to get rid of him?

Oh the irony

If Koscielny is never going to play for the club again, which hardly seems the most far-fetched or outlandish comment ever, might the management not be keen to lose Mustafi? Not including Koscielny, the only central defenders we have anywhere near the squad are Sokratis, an injured Holding (when will he be fit again?), Mustafi, Medley (who nobody seems to think is anywhere near ready yet) and Mavropanos (who in his brief appearances last season looked even further from being ready than Medley).

As things currently stand, I’m not certain it’s impossible that we’d prefer Mustafi to stay. Or have I forgotten anyone in my list above?

EDIT: I forgot Monreal who did play out of position last season. But like Koscielny, he looks as far past it as Medley allegedly does from being ready. The only difference I can see between Monreal and Koscielny is that Monreal isn’t refusing to play for the club.

I don’t agree with booing him but if he’s a nervous wreck that’s on him. His mistakes are ludicrous, failing to get goalside in a cup final, his debacle at palace costing us champions league, giving away ludicrous penalties. He’s just an absolute liability and it’s visible to every fan. He’s gonna get booed and it’s because he’s utterly brainless.

Years back he would have been moved on by now but because of his 100k wages and huge fee we can’t. The reality is the club should have loaned him out this coming season but due to our own issues we haven’t been able to bring in a replacement so we will have to watch the Mustafi debacle all over again this year. Our problems are literally played out over and over in front of our eyes

To be fair Top Gun, did Mustafi give away any more penalties through reckless tackles last season than Holding, who you seem to grossly overrate? They both conceded one at Palace; didn’t Holding give one away against Tottenham with a silly tackle?

Firstly. The Holding one at spurs was a blatant dive.

Secondly for your viewing pleasure...

https://youtu.be/apjtTqavJQM

Hoping the Tierney transfer gets finalized. Any quality help at the back is sorely needed.

Bring back the caption competition.

With Pépé, Tierney and everything else we'll be slightly better this season. I do think we will miss Ramsey more than people think and I think he'll do very well in Italy, the best of luck to him.
That said, its going to be dicey this season. Man Utd is active in the transfer market, trying to get players in, dead weight out but who knows how this will all pan out. OGS came back to earth towards the end of the season. Chelsea is another club that's a wild card. City will be great, Liverpool will be good, Tottenham...hmmm...should be but one never knows. Not too much has changed there.
Top 4 is there for us and with a season under his belt, I'm expecting a bit more out of Emery. He still hasn't gotten 'his team' yet so I would give him some room till he gets the XI he wants for his system. Still, I expect improvement upon last season.

...and I like the new kit. Didn't buy it last season but will get this season's shirt.

The Holding tackle against Tottenham was barmy, I thought pretty well everyone accepted that. I’m not saying I rate Mustafi, but a few YouTube type clips isn’t the oracle. You seem determined to focus on everything bad he does and ignore Holding’s downside. Your arguments would come across better, in my view, if you made a slight attempt to be more even handed.

One of those recently simmering deals hovering in the background waiting to pounce.

Sky now reporting that a deal has been agreed for Pépé. Medical in a few days.

I think Holding is just about OK but at least he is young so has plenty of time to improve. Mustafi, on the other hand, is an experienced player prone to all sorts of errors. He has a terrible habit of going to ground when it's completely unnecessary. The booing is absurd and he has become a scapegoat for all of our defensive problems (which Emery singularly failed to make any progress on last season). He is the new Eboue but without the madcap charm.

I would agree with that, not only about Mustafi but about Holding being just about okay. He’s alright, but nothing that special. A decent second tier (so well outside the top group) defender.

If the transfer fee with Lille has been agreed and the deal with Pépé is also agreed, why will the medical be in a few days? Has the club doctor joined Koscielny on strike, or is Pépé walking to London from France?

I don’t over rate Holding, he’s our 2nd best centre half and can provide excellent performances when on form, is he world class ? Clearly not right now but he is a valuable player.

Mustafi however is *%^@
Always will be *%^@
And his shittyness has cost us dearly time and time again.

A point that I had also reflected on. Until I see it on the AFC site then I put it in the ‘maybe’ camp.

To put things in perspective and illustrate how standards have fallen since the invincibles days:

Koscielny in his prime was light years ahead of any of the CBs we currently have at our disposal.

Sol Campbell in his prime was light years ahead of Koscielny.

Fair comment.