Things haven’t been going to plan for Henrikh Mkhitaryan lately.
Despite Manchester United starting the season strongly, the Armenian has been well short of form in recent appearances. Having struggled to make an impact against Liverpool at Anfield, he followed this with another lacklustre display in United’s Champions League win against Benfica.
As a result, Jose Mourinho saw fit to demote him to the bench for United’s first defeat of the season at Huddersfield on Saturday. Although his teammates’ poor showing in the first half saw him introduced at the break, few would suggest his performance was enough to justify a return to the starting line-up any time soon.
Now, as has been picked up by a number of reports on Tuesday, it seems the former Borussia Dortmund star might have given his manager another reason to keep him on the sidelines for a while…
As captain of his national team, Mkhitaryan was presented with the opportunity to vote in the FIFA Men’s Coach of the year category. Usually, many players opt to vote for their own manager in such situations. However, this wasn’t the case with Mkhitaryan.
Not only did he vote Real Madrid’s Zinedine Zidane as the best coach in world football, he also ignored Mourinho for his second and third choices: opting for Juventus’ Massimilliano Allegri and Leonardo Jardim of Monaco instead.
Oh my. Mkhitaryan didn't vote for Jose for the Mens Best Coach. Welcome to the bench Mkhi! 😂@ManUtd @HenrikhMkh #MUFC #MUFC_FAMILY #mufc pic.twitter.com/BxdDSTN2bv
— stefan 🕊 (@stefanabraham_) October 24, 2017
It might be worth getting used to that bench, Mkhi…
