jones wrote:
They were very good players before they moved here, Mustafi was linked to Barcelona the year before he came here and Xhaka was touted as Schweinsteiger heir for a long time. Either living in London ruined them or the coaching plays a role
I somewhat disagree with this.
I don't really care Mustafi is link with which club true or false, but Valencia fans who watched him week in week out had reservations about his game. He was part of the Valencia defence who was one of the worst in their club history, manager fault or not. His all action type of game endeared him to youtube highlights watcher, but put him at the highest level he struggled to deceive. You can tell if someone is a shit defender naturally, or just plain stupid. He is the latter and that can't be taught or influence by anyone.
Xhaka on the other hand, was rightly highly rated. He was superb at Basel, tore United apart with Shaqiri at OT. Gladbach game suited him because German clubs leaves more space in the middle/tempo of Bundesliga slower. He is still not a bad player here, when given space he can do good damage to teams. However, just take a look at the Euro2016 thread and you can see there were quite a few comments about how slow he is and how immobile he is. That hasn't change and that is still his major weakness here given the kind of football we play. I would say for the money he commanded it wasn't that terrible a signing and we will easily recoup most of it if we sell. Mustafi on the other hand...
