The_Guardian_-_2016-12-29

Next came the Manchester derby, a match which Mkhitaryan started though he’d picked up a knock
playing for Armenia while, on the opposite wing, Jesse Lingard, returned after a month out.
Remarkably, both were off the pace, subbed and criticised afterwards; curiously, José Mourinho was
less loquacious in explaining how either were meant to get the ball given the midfield mismatch that
was Marouane Fellaini and Paul Pogba against Fernandinho, Kevin de Bruyne and David Silva as
City won the match 2-1. But the blame was set. Lingard vanished for two weeks and Mkhitaryan for
two months, deemed ill-prepared for the harum-scarum of the English game.
This is not unusual, there was just little reason to expect it in this instance. Mkhitaryan grew up in
Armenia, played for two teams in Donetsk, and then moved to Borussia Dortmund; we can probably
assume that he has a solid grasp of cold, rain and grime. Moreover, he arrived at the top of his game
and in his physical prime, which made Hull look a more telling cameo than City.
While he acclimatised, United floundered, dominating some games, disappearing in others, and
struggling to score in nearly all of them. Apparently, a man directly involved in 49 goals the previous
season had nothing to offer against Stoke City and Burnley, omitted in favour of Memphis Depay. Or,
put another way, Mourinho’s policy of antidisestablishmkhitaryanism didn’t sit right, reminiscent of
earlier problems with Arjen Robben, De Bruyne and Eden Hazard.
Then, at the start of November, Mkhitaryan appeared off the bench away to Fenerbahce, but despite
the uniform awfulness of United’s performance, he was left out of the next two games, by which time
he had played just 134 minutes of a possible 1,710. For a man who arrived as the Bundesliga player
of the year, the frustration of peak months wasted cannot have been easy to take.
Eventually, though, Mourinho was convinced – coincidentally, at a time when he had run out of
alternatives and was desperate for a win. So Mkhitaryan started at home to Feyenoord and was
superb; it was almost as though he could have made a difference all along, not that Mourinho had
calculated precisely the right moment to unleash him.
Still, he was left on the bench for United’s home Premier League draw with West Ham, returning to
the starting XI for the EFL Cup tie against the same opposition. It took him all of two minutes to
backheel Zlatan Ibrahimovic through for the opening goal in a 4-1 victory, and then, after a patchy but
largely impressive display against Everton, he saw off Zorya in the Europa League and Tottenham
with a pair of dazzling finishes, before getting injured again.
Returning against Sunderland, Mkhitaryan was introduced after an hour and almost immediately,
broke with the ball in the inside-right position. Allowing it across his body as he moved towards
goal, at the very last second and when it no longer looked possible, suddenly it was gliding back the
other way to put Ibrahimovic in; this time, he missed. The pass, though, with its delay and disguise,
encapsulated Mkhitaryan.
So it was that with four minutes to go, Ibrahimovic pulled on to the right wing and Mkhitaryan bustled
into the middle. Uncharacteristically, he was ahead of the play as the cross came in – “offside”, some
have said – but before the ball arrived, he somehow decided what to do, adjusted his feet, inclined
his body and dived forwards as it passed behind him, flinging a leg over his back to place a finish
into the far corner with the outside of his right heel! It is hard enough to describe, never mind execute.