The news that Shkodran Mustafi could be leaving Arsenal this summer has taken most people aback since no one saw this coming.

This week, Mustafi has been linked with a move to either Inter or Juventus, and while most people, myself included, wrote off the initial reports as nonsense, Arsene Wenger’s non-answer regarding the issue during his pre-Liverpool press conference spoke volumes.

Considering the centre-back only signed for £35m from Valencia a year ago, we’ve been left wondering: Why does Mustafi want to leave Arsenal?

Well, there have been a few claims although nothing solid at the moment.

The main reason being peddled by the press is that the German has found it difficult to really bond with the squad, which is odd because he’s known Mesut Ozil from their national team since 2014 when Mustafi got his first senior call-up.

However, even if this option seems unlikely, so did the initial claim that Arsenal would sell a defender, when he’s one of the few actual centre-backs left at the club, a year after signing him.

There has also been talk on Twitter of Arsene Wenger just not really rating the 25-year-old and thinking he’s ‘trouble’, which seems bizarre since it was the Frenchman who signed him a year ago. If he didn’t rate him, why spend £35m on him? Mustafi wasn’t a last minute panic-buy – the Gunners were linked with him for weeks before it was actually announced.

If the latter is true and Wenger really doesn’t rate him and believes the player is trouble, it stands to reason that he didn’t before. This suggests that something has happened during the last year, perhaps even more recent since the reports linking him with Inter have popped up out of nowhere, which has changed the manager’s mind.

Maybe he pulled a Wojciech Szczesny and lit up in the showers?

Arsenal are reportedly holding out for at least £35m before they allow Mustafi to leave.