Henrikh Mkhitaryan. It’s the name on everyone’s mispronouncing lips.
But what do we know about one of the transfer window’s most talked about names? For instance, were you aware that he’s a Borussia Dortmund player? Oh, you were. Well here’s some other stuff that you need to know about him too. And at least some of it is mostly true…
Henrikh Mkhitaryan was born on 21 January 1989 in the Armenian capital Yerevan to Marina Taschyan and Hamlet Mkhitaryan, a prominent striker for FC Ararat Yerevan during the 1980s. That bit was copied word for word from Wikipedia, so let’s hope it’s true.
Mkhitaryan’s dad isn’t the only member of his family with footballing stock. Mum Marina works for the Armenian Football Federation, whilst sister Monica works at UEFA. Monica recently caused a stir amongst Arsenal fans by following them on LinkedIn – mainly because they didn’t know LinkedIn still existed.
In terms of playing style, the 27-year-old seems ideally suited to Jose Mourinho’s tactics. He is fast, hard-working and lethal on the counter-attack. He scores and sets up goals and can play in a number of positions. That said, he flourished last season playing on the right.
Regarding his outrageously impressive statistics last year at Dortmund, take your fucking pick. He either managed 23 goals and 32 assists, 21 goals and 20 assists, or 11 goals and 15 assists. We’ve fact-checked this and concluded it was 42 goals and 113 assists in only 26 games. Whatever – it was a lot.
If you’re wondering how to actually pronounce Mkhitaryan, you’re certainly not alone. There’s an Armenian way of saying it, but it’d be a little weird if you suddenly put on a foreign accent, so the best way to explain is that it broadly rhymes with:
- Kick a leery nun
- Quick! A fairy bun!
- Lick a hairy ‘un
- Vicar, where’s me gun?
- Sick! aquarium…
- Brick an Aryan
Like many of his compatriots, Mkhitaryan is a talented chess player. It led to former boss Jurgen Klopp making these (genuine) remarks: “There’s a reason why the world’s best chess players come from Armenia like Mkhitaryan…they’re thinkers, they’re hard workers, they graft.” Expect awful metaphors aplenty.
Computer manufacturers were going to do away with the copy and paste facility, as it was slowly becoming obsolete, but the emergence of Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Dortmund teammate Jakub Błaszczykowski caused them to have a serious rethink.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan doesn’t actually exist. He’s an internet invention to piss off Arsenal fans. An assist-machine to rival Mesut Ozil who rejected Arsene Wenger to join Manchester United? Fake! Armenia isn’t even real country.
