Shkodran Mustafi is expected to terminate his contract with Arsenal today and join Schalke on a permanent transfer, football.london understands.
The Gunners had attempted to sign Mustafi to an contract extension last summer, as first reported by football.london, with the German international's deal expiring on June 30 of this year.
28-year-old Mustafi hasn't played since Boxing Day and his representatives have been exploring possibilities to secure him a move away this month, in the same way that Mesut Ozil and Sokratis Papastathopoulos have left the club in recent weeks.
football.london exclusively reported last week that Arsenal had begun talks with Mustafi to terminate his contract and with Liverpool set to sign Ozan Kabak, the former Valencia defender will head the other way this afternoon.
Mustafi will join up with his former Arsenal team-mate Sead Kolasinac who arrived at the Veltins-Arena on loan earlier this month.
After originally establishing himself as a key part of Mikel Arteta 's first team plans upon the Spaniard's arrival one year ago, Mustafi has found game time hard to come by this season due to injury and the arrival of Gabriel in the summer.
Arsenal currently have five centre halves at the club; Gabriel, David Luiz, Pablo Mari, Rob Holding and Calum Chambers, with Mustafi not in Arteta's plans going forward as shown by his team selection in previous games.
"His future right now is here," said Arteta at the start of January.
"We have Papa [Sokratis Papastathopoulos] that probably is going to leave the club in this window.
"William [Saliba] that has already gone on loan, so we don't have many right now.
"Gabriel's been out for a period, David (Luiz) has been injured, so the situation is completely different to before."
