Ranking Arsenal’s five most expensive signings

#3 Shkodran Mustafi - £35m from Valencia

Arsenal Shkodran Mustafi — Shkodran Mustafi was brought in Arsenal last summer to reinforce the backline

Remarkably, this is Shkodran Mustafi’s second spell with a Premier League side, having played his academy football with Everton, where he made his senior debut in a Europa League match against BATE. Spells with Sampdoria and Valencia, however, have improved the Germany internationally immeasurably and Wenger saw fit to make him Arsenal’s most expensive defender ever in the summer of 2016 – splashing out twice as much as he had on Calum Chambers.

His first season at Arsenal was interrupted by a couple of spells of a month out through muscular injuries, while a long-term problem for Per Mertesacker meant that he was thrown in at the deep end and became a regular starter. The 25-year-old coped admirably well, suffering his first league defeat in January. Indeed, his unbeaten run of 18 league games since debuting is a new club record.

He would appear to be a player to build the defence around for years to come.

About the author

UK-based freelance football journalist. I've appeared in publications such as the Guardian, the Blizzard and When Saturday Comes. I'm most regularly found on Goal and FootballTransfers. I write about European football, and have worked at the 2014 and 2018 World Cups, as well as Euro 2016.

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Edited by Staff Editor