If ever there was a game where a flair player could go missing it was last night. Fair play to Mikki, he put in a serious shift and tried to play ball. I was very impressed by his attitude last night. Any concerns about his heart or willingness to fight are over, for me at any rate.
high hopes for Miki this year. had a tough 1st season but shown what he can do. some amazing and important goals scored by him. now hes had time to settle I fully expect him to be one of our main and stand out players. think it will definitely help him having a mobile forward in lukaku to play with. counter attacks and through balls.
Post by Reduntildeath on Aug 21, 2017 15:29:06 GMT
Article by Mhki published last year. Decent read:
Zidane, Kaká and Hamlet NOV 28 2016 PHOTO BY MATTHEW ASHTON/AMA/GETTY IMAGES SHARE Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Midfielder / Manchester United - The Players' Tribune HENRIKH MKHITARYAN MIDFIELDER / MANCHESTER UNITED One of my earliest memories is begging my father, Hamlet, to take me to training with his football club in France. I was maybe five years old. In the ’80s, before I was born, my dad played in the old Soviet Top League in our home country of Armenia. He was a small but very quick striker. Soviet Soldier magazine actually honored him with its “Knight of Attack” award in 1984.
In 1989, when I was just a baby, we moved to France because of some conflicts that were brewing in Armenia. My father played five years for Valence in France’s second division. I’d always cry when he would leave for training. Every morning I’d say, “Dad, take me with you. Please, please take me with you!”
At that age, I didn’t really care about the football yet, I just wanted to be with my father. But he didn’t want to be distracted during training by worrying about me running off, so he came up with a clever plan to fool me.
One morning, I said, “Dad, take me to training.”
He said, “No, no. There’s no training today, Henrikh. I’m going to the supermarket. I’ll be right back.”
He escaped to training, and I waited … and waited.
He came back home after a few hours. No grocery bags.
I lost it. I started crying.
“You lied to me! You didn’t go to the supermarket! You went to play football!”
untitled-5-1PHOTO COURTESY OF HENRIKH MKHITARYAN
My time with my father would be very meaningful, but also very short. When I was six years old, my parents told me that we were moving back home to Armenia. I didn’t really understand what was happening. My father had stopped playing football, and he was at home all the time.
I didn’t know it, but my father had a brain tumor. Everything happened very fast. Within a year, he was gone. Because I was so young, I didn’t completely understand the concept of death.
I remember seeing my mother and older sister always crying, and I would ask them, “Where is my father?” No one could explain what was going on.
Day by day, they started to tell to me what had happened.
I remember my mother saying, “Henrikh, he will never be with us.”
And I thought, Never? Never is such a long time when you are seven years old.
We had a lot of videotapes of him playing in France, and I would watch them very often to remember him. Two, three times a week I would watch his matches, and it would give me a lot of happiness, especially when the camera showed him when he was celebrating a goal or hugging his teammates.
On those videotapes, my father lived on.
PHOTO COURTESY OF HENRIKH MKHITARYANThe year after my father died, I started football training. He was the drive for me, he was my idol. I said to myself, I have to run just like him. I have to shoot just like him.
By the time I was 10 years old, my entire life was football. Training, reading, watching, even playing football on PlayStation. I was totally focused on it. I especially loved the creative players — the maestros. I always wanted to play like Zidane, Kaká and Hamlet. (Pretty good company for my father.)
It was very difficult, because my mother had to be both a mother and a father to me. It’s very hard for a mother to do this in society. She had to stick up for me, and also sometimes be hard with me like a father would be. I had days when I was coming home from training saying, “Ah, it’s so hard. I want to quit.”
And my mother would say, “You don’t quit. You have to keep working, and it will get better tomorrow.”
After my father’s death, my mother had to take a job to support our family. So she started working for the Armenian football federation.
This became quite funny actually once I started playing for the Armenian youth national team. If I would get emotional and act up on the pitch, my mother would come to me after the match and say, “Henrikh! What are you doing? You must behave or I’m going to have trouble at work!”
I’d say, “But mom, they kicked me! They….”
“No, no, no. You must always be polite!”
As tough as it was for us with my father gone, my mother and sister were always pushing me. They even let me go to Brazil by myself when I was 13 to train with São Paulo for four months. That was one of the most interesting times of my life, because I was a very shy kid from Armenia who didn’t speak any Portuguese. But I didn’t care at all because, to me, I was getting to go to football paradise.
I dreamed of being like Kaká, and Brazil was the home of that creative style, which the Brazilians call ginga. I actually studied the Portuguese language for two months before I left, but when I arrived in São Paulo I quickly found out that it’s one thing to study, but it’s another thing to speak with the people.
971898_727395343939115_1364703915_nPHOTO COURTESY OF HENRIKH MKHITARYAN
I had gone over with two other Armenian players. When we got to our room, we realized we had a Brazilian player as our roommate. He was kind of skinny like me, and he had dark hair.
He greeted us and said, “Bom dia! Meu nome é Hernanes.”
At the time, this kid was just a stranger, but it was the Hernanes, the one who plays for Juventus now.
We lived at the training ground. We ate there, trained there, had fun there. We didn’t have a PlayStation, only a TV, and everything was in Portuguese. So for the first few weeks, it was very hard because I couldn’t communicate with the Brazilian players. They’d just say something and smile at me, then pat me on the back. The Brazilians are amazing in their nature. You cannot describe it, you must feel that warmth when you’re around them to understand.
Thankfully, everybody spoke the universal language of football. We became friends by communicating through creativity on the pitch. I remember I scored a few goals in training one day, and I thought, “Wow, I am an Armenian kid scoring goals in Brazil.” It made me feel like a star.
After a few months, I could speak basic Portuguese pretty well, and I had taught Hernanes the Armenian alphabet.
I was so interested in the culture. It’s very different. For example, we would train for 45 minutes, then rest for 15 minutes. We would eat some fruits, drink some juice and then go back out and train for another 45 minutes. They train like it’s a real match all the time. In Armenia, at that age, we’d train more physically than technically. In Brazil, it was very technical — always with the ball.
In fact, if the kids don’t have a football, they are playing with a bunch of socks rolled up in a special way to make a ball. Everything is about the ball.
It was funny, because my mom was calling me often — pretty much every day. And I was always telling her that if she wanted to call, she needed to tell me in advance. You see, the only phone we could use for international calls was in the director’s office, so every morning one of the assistants would come running to me on the training ground and say, “Hey, your mom is on the phone.”
Then I’d have to run inside and tell her to call me later.
“How’s my baby? How’s the food? Are you eating O.K.?”
“Mom, I have to train! Call me on Sunday!”
After a few months, I could speak basic Portuguese pretty well, and I had taught Hernanes the Armenian alphabet. Without a PlayStation, there was nothing else to do!
That time was very important to me, because it shaped my style as a player. When I returned to Armenia after four months in Brazil, I was still quite skinny and weak, but I had technique and skill. I was feeling very free on the pitch. I was feeling like the Armenian Ronaldinho. (Hahahaha. No, I’m joking.) It was challenging because I now had three languages in my brain all the time — Armenian, French and Portuguese — and they were competing with each other.
I’d say half a sentence in Armenian and half in Portuguese. (And I am doing this now in English, so please excuse any funny words!)
gettyimages-104897260PHOTO BY EUROFOOTBALL/GETTY IMAGES
Then, when I was 20, I moved to Metalurh Donetsk in Ukraine, and I added a bit of Ukrainian and Russian to the mix. It was really funny because two years later when I moved across town to Shakhtar Donetsk, many people said it was going to be very difficult for me. They said I would not be able to succeed there, because there were 12 Brazilian players at the club.
I didn’t say anything, I just laughed to myself. In my mind, I’m thinking, I’m half Brazilian. Of course, I got on great with my teammates, and my three years at Shakhtar were brilliant. I set the record for goals scored in the Ukrainian Premier League in 2013, and it felt good to shut the mouths of those who said I couldn’t make it there as an Armenian.
The fate of life can be very interesting. After that season, I was offered a move to Borussia Dortmund, in Germany. Coincidentally, the conflict broke out in Donetsk not long after that, and Shakhtar’s stadium was abandoned.
So I moved to Germany, and not only was it another new language, but also the culture and the atmosphere was very different than what I was used to.
It was a very hard period for me. The first season was O.K., but the second season was a disaster, not only for me, but also for the club. We were losing so much, and I felt like I was having no luck. Not only was I not scoring, but I was not assisting, which is very unlike me. I had been signed for a lot of money, and I put a lot of pressure on myself.
I had many hard nights in my apartment in Dortmund, all alone, just thinking and thinking. I didn’t want to go outside, even to have dinner. But, as I said, fate can be interesting. A new manager, Thomas Tuchel, came to Dortmund before my third season, and he changed everything for me.
He came to me and said, “Listen, I want to get everything out of you.”
I was kind of smiling and laughing, because I thought he was just trying to make me feel better. I was doubting his words.
But he looked at me very seriously, and said, “Micki, you are going to be great.”
That meant everything to me. After the season I had, I didn’t think I could be a star. But he did it. He got everything out of me that season, and it was because I was happy again. When you are sad, you can’t be lucky. This is something I learned from the Brazilian culture. When you are happy, good things happen on the pitch. That season, we played with enthusiasm. We played a crazy, super-attacking style, and we enjoyed every minute on the pitch.
We basically played with two defenders, three midfielders and five strikers, and we had success. Even when we lost, we had fun.
micki-manu-pull
Last summer, my agent called me and said that Manchester United was interested in signing me. It took me by surprise.
I said, “Is it real? Or is it just speculation?”
When your dreams are close to coming true, it does not feel real at first.
A few days later, Manchester United’s interest was confirmed when I got a call from Ed Woodward, their executive director. He told me that the club was indeed interested in me. You can imagine how excited I was by that possibility!
While my agent and the club were negotiating the transfer, I had time to consider my options. I knew it would be a challenge to leave a good situation at Dortmund and succeed at United, but I did not want to sit in my chair as an old man and have any regrets. I was ready to move.
When the deal was done and dusted, I sat down to sign the contract with United and that’s when it hit me … that’s when I realized that this big move to the Premier League was really happening.
I will never forget that moment, nor will I forget the time I put on the red Manchester United shirt before my first training session with the club. It made me feel so happy and proud about what I had achieved in my career.
At the beginning of this season at United, I suffered an injury and have not had many chances to play. It would be fair to say that the start of my life in Manchester was not perfect. But there have been many other times when I’ve had setbacks, and I have never given up. I will continue working every day so that I can help the team succeed.
If you asked my mom and my sisters about me, they would say that I am quite “hard.” I can be very serious. But if I’m being honest, I’m very happy with the way my life has turned out. It was always my dream to play for the biggest clubs in the world.
When you walk onto the pitch at Old Trafford, it is not just a pitch, it is a stage. If my father could see me on that stage, I think he would be very proud. I was always kind of chasing him, and I think even though he’s not here, he helped me to get to this place.
If he was still alive, maybe I would be a lawyer or a doctor right now. Instead, I am a footballer.
It’s funny, because after matches I never watch myself on TV. I hate watching myself, because I only notice my mistakes. I am very different from my father in my playing style. He was a fast striker with a powerful shot. I am much more technical. But many people back home in Armenia tell me that I look exactly like my father when I run.
They say, “Henrikh, you look the same, you run the same. You remind me so much of Hamlet when I watch you.”
I wouldn’t know because I can’t stand to watch myself, but it makes sense. I first dreamed of running free on the pitch by watching the videotapes of him after he was gone.
If ever there were two players designed to embrace the headlines and hype from Manchester United’s prolific start to the season they are Romelu Lukaku and Paul Pogba; their powerful and irresistible brand has been seamlessly recreated on the pitch.
Meanwhile, Henrikh Mkhitaryan will be glad to take shade from the exposure behind his more spotlight-hungry team-mates, having quietly laid on half of United’s eight goals.
It’s a supply line unmatched by anyone in the Premier League during the opening couple of matches, with only four other players – Christian Eriksen, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Granit Xhaka and Riyad Mahrez – boasting more than a single assist.
Similarly, no player has created more chances in open play, with Mesut Ozil, David Silva and Nathan Redmond also setting up eight opportunities. If Mkhitaryan can retain the levels of creative consistency shown by Ozil and Silva in recent years, then the £26.3million Mourinho paid Borussia Dortmund last year will be viewed in hindsight as an absolute steal.
And that now is the challenge for Mkhitaryan: maintaining this level of performance, even if it is too much to ask him to retain his current level of productivity.
Last season, the Armenian created 26 chances in open play from 1349 Premier League minutes – a rate of one every 52 minutes. In contrast, the division’s most creative talent was Eden Hazard, who laid on an opportunity in open play every 35 minutes.
Having been trusted with the No.10 role by Mourinho, with a wealth of attacking talent and firepower surrounding him, the manager will be expecting Mkhitaryan to join the likes of Hazard, Ozil, Silva, Eriksen, Alexis Sanchez, Roberto Firmino and Kevin De Bruyne in laying on at least one chance for a team-mate for each half of Premier League action. Put like that, it sounds possible.
The feasability of Mkhitaryan achieving that is far greater now than it was a season ago. Watching him thrive in United’s attack against West Ham and Swansea, it’s difficult to comprehend that his first start – in the derby when the campaign was three games old – was cut short at half-time after 45 minutes that left United fans fearing they had signed another Dortmund dud.
Played on the right, it is hard to overstate how disastrous a day that was for Mkhitaryan. One moment summed it up, when he went to press a City defender, stopped, went again and stopped again, which led to a rocket from Wayne Rooney and the Armenian throwing his arms in the air and turning to the bench with a look as if to say: “What the hell am I supposed to be doing?”
Mourinho took Mkhitaryan out of the firing line and limited his work to the training ground. Despite the pelters the manager received, the approach worked. Many called it ‘tough love’ but Mourinho knew his new boy was a different character to many of the egos he was used to handling. He was protecting a player who, unlike many, always looks at himself first when things are not going well. And even when they are going well, self-doubt is never far from Mkhitaryan’s mind.
The 28-year-old could have been playing for Liverpool had he not turned down the opportunity to join Brendan Rodgers’ side from Shakhtar Donetsk in 2013 after a series of conversations with the then-Reds manager. “Half of me thought I had to go there; the other half was not so confident, that the gap to the Premier League might be too big for a skinny player from the Ukrainian League,” he later revealed.
Rather than make the leap to England, Jurgen Klopp persuaded Mkhitaryan to take the smaller, perhaps more sensible step to Dortmund. After a positive first season, the doubts crept back in once again during Klopp’s final season with the club.
“The first season was OK, but the second season was a disaster, not only for me, but also for the club,” Mkhitaryan wrote in a fascinating piece for the Players’ Tribune. “We were losing so much, and I felt like I was having no luck. Not only was I not scoring, but I was not assisting, which is very unlike me. I had been signed for a lot of money, and I put a lot of pressure on myself.
“I had many hard nights in my apartment in Dortmund, all alone, just thinking and thinking. I didn’t want to go outside, even to have dinner. But, as I said, fate can be interesting. A new manager, Thomas Tuchel, came to Dortmund before my third season, and he changed everything for me. He came to me and said, “Listen, I want to get everything out of you.
“I was kind of smiling and laughing,” wrote Mkhitaryan, who is smart enough to recognise bluster in six different languages. “I thought he was just trying to make me feel better. I was doubting his words. But he looked at me very seriously, and said, ‘Micki, you are going to be great.’ That meant everything to me. After the season I had, I didn’t think I could be a star. But he did it. He got everything out of me that season, and it was because I was happy again.”
Tuchel teased such form out of Mkhitaryan that he was named the Bundesliga Players’ Player of the Year after contributing 15 assists, proving that his introspection should not be mistaken for weakness. This is a man who lost his father aged six, and moved to Brazil and Ukraine to help achieve his goals. His strength is not in his muscles.
Only after doing the business in the Bundesliga did the attacker then feel ready for the Premier League. Not that he was going to crow about it.
“I never promise something, I always say that I will try,” Mkhitaryan told The Telegraph after signing for the Red Devils. “Because if you promise something and you don’t do it you will always be under pressure. I want to do everything to get to a new level.”
There was enough pressure without Mkhitaryan adding to it himself, especially after his derby debut disaster. Under-promise and over-deliver has been a running theme through Mkhitaryan’s career. But, despite the worrying start at Old Trafford and the scrutiny of Mourinho’s handling of the situation, the manager remained positive over his new recruit, affording him the patience to come out of his shell.
“Some players find it very easy whereas others need more time,” said Mourinho, who is using a similar approach with Victor Lindelof. “They need time to feel the intensity, the aggression, the game without the ball and the competitiveness.
“The realities are often different, particularly in terms of the competitiveness. It doesn’t matter who you are against, you have to play at the highest level otherwise you will not be able to do it. Micki needs time to become the top player he knows he can be.
“I think Micki will work here for sure.”
Mkhitaryan received different treatment to the likes of Luke Shaw and Anthony Martial because their different circumstances and characters demanded it. With Shaw and Martial, it was clear both were playing fast and loose with their final chances at Old Trafford; Mourinho was preparing Mkhitaryan to be able to seize his opportunities when they inevitably came.
Of course, his status improved to the point where he scored United’s crucial second in the Europa League final and the Armenian is now central to Mourinho’s “happy football”. The manager has created an attack that demands the best from Mkhitaryan but also now offers the best environment for him to provide it. With Lukaku and either Marcus Rashford or Martial pushing defensive lines towards their own goal, Juan Mata coming off the right flank to bounce the ball off and Pogba and Nemanja Matic demanding attention behind him, Mkhitaryan is finding the pockets of space from where he can do most damage.
At his present rate, he will have equalled Philippe Coutinho’s best season for assists by half-time of United’s fourth Premier League game. Of course, his current vein of form is not sustainable, and Mkhitaryan will drift at times this season, just as he meanders in and out of matches. But come May, it is not unreasonable for Mourinho to expect his creator-in-chief to be vying with United’s rivals’ playmakers if the Red Devils are to mount a credible title campaign.
MANCHESTER -- Jose Mourinho has accused Henrikh Mkhitaryan of "disappearing" this season and revealed the midfielder has been left out of Manchester United's last two squads as punishment.
Mourinho has confirmed Mkhitaryan will return against Brighton at Old Trafford on Saturday after failing to make the bench against Newcastle or FC Basel.
But the Armenian has been told by the United manager he wants to see a marked improvement after a string of disappointing performances.
The 28-year-old, a £30 million signing from Borussia Dortmund in 2016, started the season with five assists in his first three games, but he has not recorded one in the Premier League since.
He has also been substituted in each of his last eight starts and withdrawn before the 65-minute mark in five of his last six.
Mourinho told a news conference on Friday: "I was not happy with his last performances.
"I'm not speaking about one or two, I'm speaking about three, four or five. He started the season very well and after that, step by step, he was disappearing.
"His performance levels in terms of goal scoring and assists, high pressing, recovering the ball high up the pitch, bringing the team with him as a No.10, were decreasing step by step.
"That was enough because the others worked to have a chance. Everybody works to have a chance. It's as simple as that."
Mourinho was critical of his forwards following the surprise 1-0 defeat to Basel on Wednesday after his team missed a host of chances in the first half.
It was a problem that plagued United last season, although this term they are the second-highest scorers in the Premier League after Manchester City.
Still, Mourinho insists a squad that boasts the attacking talents of Romelu Lukaku, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial, Juan Mata and Mkhitaryan should be producing more.
He said: "A team that plays the way we play so many times, I think we should score more goals than we do.
"The team that excites more is the team that after five chances is winning 4-0. That's a team that excites more."
Mkhitaryan's return against Brighton -- United's first league game against The Seagulls since 1983 -- means that another forward will have to miss out warned Mourinho.
He said: "He will be back in the group. For him to be back to the group, it means that somebody is going to leave the group.
"Maybe the next press conference after the match you are asking me why a was not on the pitch or why he was not even selected. That's life. Rules are like this. Only 11 plus seven.
"When you have a chance and the performance is not what you expect, that's normal. That's life. You have to perform."
Mkhitaryan has fallen out of favour after starting 11 of United's first 12 games of the season. And he has been told to follow the example set by Martial if he wants to win back a regular place.
Mourinho added: "I think we had an improvement with Martial. He's scoring more goals than last season. That's why he is playing more. He has more minutes on the pitch. When you compete a lot, training is difficult to judge because in the end you train in small groups.
"I cannot say that when you play so much, training is the best habitat to analyse the players.
"I would say on the pitch -- pitch, match, and sometimes in a couple of minutes you see things.
"You don't need sometimes to play 40, 50, 60 minutes for the coach to have feelings and have data to analyse.
"So I would say it's on the pitch, especially on the pitch. Tell me on the pitch what you want to do the next match."
