Shkodran Mustafi has a great game, then trends on Twitter

Arsenal opened its Europa League campaign with a 0-3 road win at one of last season’s semi-finalists, Eintracht Frankfurt. The final scoreline doesn’t tell the true story, as Arsenal held on to a one goal lead until the last five minutes of the match. Additionally, the Gunners‘ goal was under constant threat throughout. Yet the defense held off the home side and kept a clean sheet.

Joe Willock gave his side the lead with a goal in the 38^th minute. With Arsenal’s leaky defense no lead is ever a sure thing and the one goal advantage looked precarious as the second half wore on.

Fans of the North London team have seen this type of match before and were waiting for the inevitable sucker punch to come. However, it never did. The team looked shaky at times on defense, but Emiliano Martinez in goal exuded total confidence and it seemed to trickle down to the rest of the side.

In fact, the often mocked Shkodran Mustafi is actually receiving a lot of praise from fans for his performance on the day. The German was a trending topic on Twitter post-match and for once it was for good reasons. Here’s a sampling:

In case you’re wondering if this means that Arsenal fans have forgiven Mustafi for his past transgressions; of course it doesn’t.

One good game doesn’t erase all the bad ones. However, for once it’s nice to see Mustafi trending online for positive reasons rather than mistakes.