Shkodran Mustafi out to prove he's worth the wait after finally completing £35m Arsenal transfer

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James Benge31 August 2016

Shkodran Mustafi has assured Arsenal fans he will prove to be worth the wait after finally completing his return to the Premier League.

Arsenal completed the £35m signing of the former Valencia centre-back on Tuesday, over a month after they had first been forced into the market by a serious injury to club captain Per Mertesacker, who will be unavailable until 2017.

Arsene Wenger had initially hoped to secure Mustafi, who was at Everton as a youngster, for around £20m but has been forced to pay the third-highest fee ever spent on a centre-back to secure the German World Cup winner.

Without an experienced centre-back to partner Laurent Koscielny, who instead shepherded the youthful Rob Holding through the last two matches, Arsenal dropped five points to cede early ground in the title race to Chelsea and the Manchester sides. But Mustafi promised his new supporters he will be worth the wait.

“I saw a lot of pictures going around on Twitter, on Instagram and on Facebook,” he told the club website. “Some of them made me laugh as well. I know that for people who watch football and live football, waiting for new signings isn’t easy sometimes.

“All the signings know there are a lot of things going on in the transfer, so you have to make sure you do everything good to have a good start. That’s what we did. We tried to take our time, do everything the best way you can do it and then start this episode here correctly.

“I’ve been playing in different countries. I’m only 24 but I’ve played in Italy, in Germany and in England, where I had some time with Everton. Then I played in Spain as well, so I’ve tried really to take some of the style of the different countries.

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“Right now I would say that I’m quite an aggressive player. I go into everything, that’s what I learnt in England. But on the other side, I’m quite tactical. I try to read the game, like you do in Italy. With the ball, I try to play out and enjoy having the ball, not just giving it away as soon as you get it.”

Mustafi will not join up with his new team-mates until after the international break. He is currently with the German national team.

Indeed the limited time Mustafi will have to work with his new team-mates may encourage Wenger to continue with Holding alongside Koscielny after the 20-year-old’s impressive performances against Leicester and Watford.

Wenger told Standard Sport on Saturday: “It’s important that a player who comes from Bolton, comes to a club where he concedes four goals in the first game at home, he has to play under huge pressure at Leicester and today he performs the way he does.

“I think it’s not easy and it shows some great potential and I am convinced that he will give a fight to all the centre backs.”

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