Confidence has been restored to the Arsenal camp following their impressive wins on the trot but there was a dark cloud over our silver lining when new signing, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, was forced off following a clash of knees with some Russian bloke with vodka in his blood with our dear Armenian coming out second best. It’s never good when a player indicates to the bench to substitute him because it clearly shows that he can’t take any part of that game and that was the case on Thursday evening with Mkhi.
Alex Iwobi came on in his stead and had a good game by his modest standards but we needed to hear the manager’s assessment (via Arsenal.com) of the situation after the game,
“Micki came off and he will be out for Sunday. He has a scan and the fear is that his medial knee ligament has been touched. We’ll know more about that soon. For how long he will be out, I don’t know.”
When the manager says ‘he doesn’t know’, he throws things into limbo and as expected, some other sports websites have been quick to give their own assessment of the injury because, you know, they seem to work hand in hand with the club’s physio, Colin Lewin. The Telegraph has reported that Mkhitaryan could miss the rest of the season and with the campaign having just a month left, they might just be correct.
That being said, I’d like to take some time out to reflect on Mkhitaryan’s fledgling career with the Gunners following his swap from a disastrous spell at Manchester United in January. 12 games, two goals and six assists has been a very good return from the attacking midfielder and the Gunners are right to expect more from him as he’s a player of immense quality.
Having Mkhitaryan in the side also relieved the creative stress off Mesut Ozil as the Gunners could also boast of another attacking midfielder that has a penchant for creating chances for others and it was good seeing him connect with his long time friend, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang with their collective performance against Watford showing the world that that bromance still exists. I’m quite happy we got a player like Mkhi for free bearing in mind that we wanted him a few seasons ago when he won the Bundesliga Player of the Year award scoring 25 goals and notching up 26 assists.
I wish Mkhi a speedy recovery and hope to see him on the pitch.
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