I'd like to add that he would have had many more assists if team mates hadn't bottled many great chances he had created. His own shooting skills were a mixed bag though.
22
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 41
- Goals
- 11
- Assists
- 5
- Yellow cards
- 4
- Status
Maybe it was the second year?
His second year was pretty terrible during the first 20 matches - bar Aubameyang though, everyone was terrible. But even then he had created big chances which team mates bottled. IIRC, we had a conversion rate as low as 7 or 8% that season, at times even as low as 5.x.
The remaining 14 matches were much better, he bagged some assists and goals.
Yeah, I mixed up the first season and the half a season relegation battle, my bad.
Edit: And yes, he always creates a lot or find himself in great position but when things are bad, he butchers the last pass or shot.
He dramatically improved that in his last season.
He claimed that the book that Tuchel gave him - the inner game of tennis - helped him to just play and let it go if he misplaced a pass or didn't shoot well. Before, he said, such failed actions mounted on him and he forced himself to compensate for them with something special, something extraordinary - and that he cracked often under this self-imposed pressure.
he was decent to good in the first 3 games though so if jose is going by the city game alone, its not fair. He at least showed enough to warrant a sub appearance.
conspiracy theory time - was his signing more for getting into raiola's good books than for a need?
conspiracy theory time - was his signing more for getting into raiola's good books than for a need?
I'm convinced that Mkhitaryan was the shooter on the grassy knoll and Mourinho bought him into order to keep him from talking to the media.
Naa. What's the point? Let's just say you need to do something in order to get Raiola on your side... Just bribe the man, why go and spends so much money on a transfer fee and wages.
We've had an extremely tough run of matches. What with his injury and how he performed in a big game last time he came back, there was no way he was ever going to start these matches. The absolute most that he'd have got was a bit of time off the bench.
Now that we have (in theory at least) an easier run of matches, I expect he'll start getting some game time and a chance to bed himself into the team.
Now that we have (in theory at least) an easier run of matches, I expect he'll start getting some game time and a chance to bed himself into the team.
With Burnley at home being the next match I am actually confident he'll get minutes.
I think people are giving far too much weight to Mkhitaryan's last season at Dortmund. Tuchel's system gets the absolutely maximum out of his attackers which is why kids like Mor, Pulisic & Dembele have easily replaced him there. He's obviously talented but it's not like they were giving him the ball & relying solely on him to break down defences.
He's obviously going to improve you since he has a different skillset than the likes of Rashford, Lingard & Martial but I'm not sure he's a Top of the line tier player.
He's obviously going to improve you since he has a different skillset than the likes of Rashford, Lingard & Martial but I'm not sure he's a Top of the line tier player.
I thought he was borderline world class last year and truly a pleasure to watch, which makes it puzzling unless he's been genuinely injured all this time. Really would of loved him at Arsenal and he nearly came before you came and offered bigger wages/signing on fee. Reckon you'll go up a gear if he actually starts for you.
Dembele did look like a world class prospect last season though, not sure how good the other 2 are though. Dortmund don't look quite as good this season either.
Can't see him starting though with hardly any football in him. Unless he's been playing in the reserves?
Two things that get thrown around too much:
1) Rumors without a decent foundation to them.
2) The Term "world class".
1) Rumors without a decent foundation to them.
2) The Term "world class".
Pay nearly £30m for a player who can barely make the subs bench let alone start a game....really bizarre especially since our wide players (or #10 tbh) have hardly been setting the world on fire.
I'll give Mourinho the benefit of the doubt and assume he thought Miki wasn't ready to face Citeh again although it wasn't a league match....he definitely should get a look on Saturday.
You can't blame him though, can you? Obviously money plays a big part but there's more to it than that. United, however bad they might be now, are still one of the biggest clubs in the world who plenty of players would love to join. To add to that, bringing in José, Pogba and Zlatan would have been an added bonus to Mkhi's decision as it looked like we were trying to create something special, which you can't blame him for wanting to be apart of.
Then you've got the whole Bayern owning the whole of the Bundesliga, and I don't just mean them buying Dortmunds players. It must be frustrating being apart of a brilliant team like Dortmund were last year, and still know you won't go on to become the "top dogs" of the league as Bayern just have a hold of it. If you don't play for Bayern, I can see why any of the top players in the Bundesliga would fancy a change to PL. I'm a fan of the BL by the way, so please don't take this as a "Premier League is better than everyone else" post because that's not what I intended.
Anyway, maybe RB Leipzig can change that in the future?
I have to agree. Whilst I don't watch as much of the Bundesliga as some, whenever I did watch Dortmund and Mkhi, I just never took to him.
I think it's been obvious since the Fenerbahce that this will be Mkhi's chance to shine. Let's hope he takes it.
Whether he's a TOTL player can be debated, I agree on that.
As for the first paragraph, however, you either haven't watched enough Dortmund games (too small sample size) or your memory is playing tricks with you. Neither Mor (who hardly plays) nor Pulisic nor Dembele have easily replaced Mkhitaryan. They don't even come close, lack many skills and contribition. That's not meant as criticism because they are still very young and inexperienced (18/19/20 years old); apart from some glory hunting fans and BS journos, it was expected that they need time to step up. The only discipline where they are better than Mkhitaryan are take-ons, although their decision making when to take on and what to do afterwards is quite mediocre.
The talent or ceiling of the three youngsters may be higher than Mkhitaryan's, but what's important on the pitch is what you are able to deliver now, not in the future.
Wasn't he also injured and on crutches for a good 2 months during the beginning of his second year?
And yes you are correct Dortmund was creating a lot of chances as they are now but couldn't convert them and their defense was bottom 3 in the league. No one was playing well that year and they were in a relegation spot or very close to it more than halfway through the season.
I remember watching one game vs Monchengladbach where they lost 2-0 and they had something like 20-25 shots vs gladbach's 3. That game kind of summed up their first part of the season.
So, it was his team mates fault, that Mkhitaryan completely failed to deliver that season half? That is painting him in a bit too positive light in my book.
Not only did he do his best to help dragging down the chance conversion rate, he also downright destroyed a huge load of promising attacking situations by his abysmal desicion making in the final third. There were games, when it would have been better to play without him and one man less. The only saving grace he had was his workrate, which never truly dropped. This was also the main reason why the match going crowd showed even more than their usual patience (which is already pretty damn high to begin with) before starting to turn on him. The press was not so merciful and made him the symbol for the collapse. Given what kind of club we are, the officials (with Klopp at the helm) of course jumped to his side and shielded him from the medial fire.
Nonetheless, in a overall clearly underperforming team he stood out negatively.
Mkhitrayan is a prime example of the risk of a confidence player. If he feels the trust and is high on said confidence he can become a monster, but without it he is like a completely different player.
It will be down to Mourinho to get the right version of Mkhitaryan to appear, otherwise the latter won´t be around very long.
@Sphaero
And again I am very happy to agree with you to disagree with you, Sphaero. On the first three paragraphs of your post, to be more precise. In fact, you sound a bit bitter on Mkhitaryan if I compare your posts on him now to ones during his spell at Dortmund. BTW: If you had read my posts, you wouldn't suggest that I excluded Mkhitaryan from his contribution to the very poor conversion rate in 2014/15. I was clearly talking about assists / key passes / creating big chances.
Whether Mkhitaryan cuts it at United I don't really care. I chimed in this thread to express my strong doubts that Mourinho's and/or the media's story of him needing to adapt to the physical demands of the PL or that he's lazy in training which is IMO laughable.
And again I am very happy to agree with you to disagree with you, Sphaero. On the first three paragraphs of your post, to be more precise. In fact, you sound a bit bitter on Mkhitaryan if I compare your posts on him now to ones during his spell at Dortmund. BTW: If you had read my posts, you wouldn't suggest that I excluded Mkhitaryan from his contribution to the very poor conversion rate in 2014/15. I was clearly talking about assists / key passes / creating big chances.
Whether Mkhitaryan cuts it at United I don't really care. I chimed in this thread to express my strong doubts that Mourinho's and/or the media's story of him needing to adapt to the physical demands of the PL or that he's lazy in training which is IMO laughable.
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Yeah it's getting absurd. He was poor vs City, but so was pretty much everyone else that first half.
He was one of the most productive players in the Bundesliga last season, and considering the price we paid for him it seems unlikely he only was used as leverage to broker the Pogba deal
People think it's a straight up choice out of Mkhi and Mata for the no. 10 position, but I see him more as a replacement for Lingard. I'd be happy to see him replace Lingard in the sort of attacking lineup we fielded against Leicester.
Think it will be a lot clearer after the Burnley game. If he doesn't come on at least as a sub, then there's probably something going on behind the scenes given that he is fit now. Until then, its just useless speculation.
So, is he actually fit and available to play? I was under the impression he was till trying to get match fitness etc after his injury. I guess that was 4 weeks ago 
That's how I would define slow. Don't forget that he was the club record signing at that time and expected successor to Mario Götze. Mkhitaryan at his worst was never terrible for Dortmund but he had looked like a passenger and out of depth for far too many matches. He's a complex case, seems to be the kind of player who has all the talent but not the mentality to be a top class player. And can only perform when he feels like performing.
What about "top, top player"'s
It is absolutely fair to have a different opinion, but before you throw terms like bitterness at someone you should actually back it up with some evidence. Show me these appearant posts of mine which contradict anything I said in my last post.
I rate Mkhitaryan´s raw football skills highly, higher than most on here. He is an extremely complete offensive player with an extraordinary defensive workrate and contribution. All this did not stop me from calling a potential transfer to United a big gamble when the rumours started (back then I still firmly believed he would extent his contract with us), because while his skillset was never in question for me, his mental strength certainly was.
I touched on his metnal fragility several times when he still played for us. Once I connected his tendency to overthink on the pitch to his high intelligence outside of it (fluent in many languages, top class chess player, university degree). On numerous occasions I called him one of my favourite players to watch but also one of the most frustrating players to ever wear the yellow black shirt. You could always see his talent, but his decision making went down the gutter the moment things did not go his way on the pitch, which led him to struggle to convert his talent into performances. In the first half of the 2014/2015 season it reached an extreme level, which led him to perform way under his usual and expected level.
As for the mention of the conversion rate: All I did was point out that he was a major influence on a stat you used to defend him. Nothing more than that.
A player changing colors might change my sympathies towards them or how I view them as personalites, but it does not alter my opinion on him as player. I did not do so with Kagawa, Götze or Hummels (in the last two cases I have/had way more reason to feel bitter about the transfers) or the other players who left. I´m not going to start with Mkhitaryan.
I can understand the mkhitaryan dilemma if we were in our glory days. However those times are gone. We got lingard and young not Beckham and ronaldo
awful. On Wednesday we had Young, Depay and Lingard on the bench. Very little variation as to what they offer as wingers, so if Miki doesn't offer enough, even just to mix things up from those default wingers, he must be pretty terrible.
As someone who follows the Bundesliga, does he offer more than Rashford, Young, Lingard and Depay out wide?
Mourinho is an idiot. Nothing new here. Probably wants to rough him up or something.
Mkhitaryan isnt bad in training, just like Herrera wasnt under LvG. He is quite simply playing games and being an idiot at this point.
Mkhitaryan isnt bad in training, just like Herrera wasnt under LvG. He is quite simply playing games and being an idiot at this point.
How do you know any of this?
Pure speculation.
Groundless assumptions. We have no idea what's going on behind the scenes.
It's obvious you've never watched a single game of him. I think People following the Bundesliga would have a laugh at this, no offense. Can you imagine Lingard being the top player in Germany?
And no, it has nothing to do with him training poorly, there are other reasons and we may soon know.
Isn't it possible that Jose does rate Mkhi and always has, meaning that he reserved the bench for those players in greater need of minutes on the pitch (Memphis, Schneiderlin etc). If you think about it, if Memphis isn't going to get a chance in a league cup game, is he going to get a chance at all?
What could be the sell on value on Mhiki? Not played much and now injured. £15m?
Its counter intuitive to not put players in your plans on the bench, unless of course they aren't fully fit which Mkhitaryan wasn't.
Mourinho said himself he'd rather Mikhitaryan completed full training rather than match-day training and 15 mins on the pitch. I reckon he probably was ready for the City game, but Mourinho didn't want to throw him in again for such a big affair.
He'll be invovled for the Burnley game for sure.
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- Status