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Mkhitaryan


Gym Beglin
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Artur Petrosyan Artur Petrosyan ‏@arturpetrosyan 1h

 

Bad news is that #Shakhtar declined Liverpool's first offer. Good news is that negotiations are not over. That's it for now.

 

 

Artur Petrosyan ‏@arturpetrosyan 1h

 

But having Ian Ayre up against Mino Raiola is like playing Paul Konchesky against Messi.

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Artur Petrosyan Artur Petrosyan ‏@arturpetrosyan 1h

 

Bad news is that #Shakhtar declined Liverpool's first offer. Good news is that negotiations are not over. That's it for now.

 

 

Artur Petrosyan ‏@arturpetrosyan 1h

 

But having Ian Ayre up against Mino Raiola is like playing Paul Konchesky against Messi.

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...at least he's talking to the right people this time......I think

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A profile on our boy, Micky, from the excellent Jonathan Wilson.

 

 

When Jádson returned to Brazil to join São Paulo last season, the expectation was that Shakhtar Donetsk would buy another of his compatriots: how else could they replicate his creativity and goals from midfield? Mircea Lucescu, though, simply advanced one of his deeper lying midfielders, breaking the habit of the previous few seasons by playing an eastern European towards the front of his team.

 

Henrikh Mkhitaryan had, in fairness, only been playing so deep because of Fernandinho's broken leg but still, nobody quite expected the explosion when he resumed his former role. His first 14 league games of last season brought 16 goals and he went on to amass 25 for the season. He is not, though, he insists, a forward: rather, he is a midfielder who can operate either as a deep-lying distributor or behind a striker. In Shakhtar's fluent 4-2-3-1 system, he was pivotal, a hub whose movement helped shape the whole. In that regard, it's easy to see why Brendan Rodgers is so keen to bring him to Liverpool: Mkhitaryan has the ability to find and generate space that is vital to possession-based teams – and he also has a ruthlessness in front of goal that Liverpool have lacked over the past couple of seasons.

 

For Mkhitaryan the move feels logical. Liverpool aspire to a style of football relatively similar to Shakhtar's. At 24, now is probably the time to make the step up to the consistent competition of the Premier League, particularly as the Shakhtar team is dismantled, with Willian, Fernandinho and Razvan Rat already departed (it's not Liverpool's fault, but there is something sad about seeing another bright young team – like Athletic Bilbao and Porto before them – broken down and sold off after one season of flickering achievement; one of the curses of the economic disparities of the modern game).

 

Whether Mkhitaryan would adapt is impossible to say but the signs are good. Mkhitaryan has a gift for languages – it's a family trait: his sister Monica works as a translator for Uefa – and has a down-to-earthness that suggests he is smart and pragmatic enough to adjust. Just as importantly, he gives a sense of understanding his own game: he is not a savant to whom excellence just happened; he has worked methodically to develop his talent, something in which he was helped by his close relationship with Lucescu.

 

"It wasn't easy for him from the start," said the Romanian, "but his integration was speeded up by his high level of football intelligence. His game awareness is perhaps his most valuable quality – that and the speed and power and technique Henrikh was gifted by nature and that he's developed. Because of those virtues, he's one of the players who most consistently fulfils the tasks set by the coaching staff. Working with him is fun."

 

Mkhitaryan's father, Hamlet, was a well-respected centre-forward for Ararat Yerevan, Armenia's most successful club in Soviet times, in the late 80s. He had a brief stint at Kotayk Abovyan, and then, in 1989, a few months after Henrikh's birth, he was transferred to the French club ASOA Valence, where he spent five years before a move to Issy, picking up two caps for the newly independent Armenia. Even then, Henrikh's love for football was clear. "When I was a child, I used to watch my father playing football, and I always wanted to follow him to training," he said. "When he didn't take me with him I stayed next to the door, crying. I always wanted to become a football player, and I thank my parents, as they helped me so much to realise this dream. They always supported me on my path."

 

The Mkhitaryans returned to Yerevan in 1995 and, just a year later, when Henrikh was seven, his father died from a brain tumour. Football, though, remained a major part of the family's life, with his mother now heading the national team department at the Armenian football federation.

 

In the pantheon of Armenian footballers, Mkhitaryan stands at the very top, alongside Nikita Simonyan, Eduard Markarov and Khoren Hovhannisyan. As the greatest Armenian player since fragmentation, he probably carries a greater responsibility than any of them, a role of which he is well aware. "Not so many Armenian players are given the chance to play in the Champions League, and this is really important for me, because I want to do everything to impress the children who are watching me playing," he said last season.

 

"For those children, I want their goal to be to play in the Champions League, and for the most important European teams. They don't have to stop in the Armenian league, thinking that they're not able to achieve anything more. Every person has to keep in mind that they can grow up and reach the top, no matter where they are born, whether it's in Russia, in Ukraine, in Europe; they've still got the opportunity to show their talent and the culture of their people."

 

If he joins Liverpool, he will of course have to forego Champions League football but it may be that he can help bring the competition back to Anfield.

 

Liverpool target Henrikh Mkhitaryan owes much to heritage and hard work | Jonathan Wilson | Football | guardian.co.uk

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"How do you see your future wife?

 

- Beautiful, intelligent.

 

- They all say so. There is no man who would say: I want an ugly and stupid one.

 

- Oh! There are some! For me it does not matter whether she will be blonde, brunette or redhead. It is important that she will be well educate, because if we have children, she must be good with plow"

 

I couldn't help but read this part in my mind with the voice of Borat. Even to the point of leaving off the d and adding the last bit.

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I'm n ot sure if I'm happy or not with this as to me it means Suarez is deffo off.

 

I know what you mean, but if Suarez goes, it won't be because we got Mickey hairyman in. And he sounds like a good player, so if Suarez is playing, surely we want good players in.

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He sounds like someone you'd bump into outside the jobcentre. Might be a pricey buy but we could probably get away with paying him £50 a week and sticking him in a bedsit. I'm sure that "intelligent girl" stuff is just bollocks an'all. He's probably never seen a proper pair of tits the poor lad.

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Oleksandr Sereda ‏@sereda_alex 25m

 

Shakhtar CEO: 'I haven't talked to anyone from Liverpool [regarding Henrikh Mkhitaryan's transfer]'

 

Shakhtar CEO: "The situation has been strongly and artificially been pumped up. We have had no communication with any member of LFC

 

Looks like Ayre has been speaking to the wrong people again or we are doing an Everton pretending to buy player x,y or more likely their agent is using us for publicity.

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Tiresome this, straight to blaming Ayre whenever anything doesn't seem to be "reportedly" remotely going well with a transfer deal. The man is not without his faults but every little thing just gets latched on and put on his door.

 

Like Liverpool are the ONLY club in the world that have protracted transfers (people actually use those words when moaning). If you go to any other fan of any other club they would say there club is exactly the same. Why? Because majority of the time half of what is written and reported are half truths wrapped in other half truths all in the ploy of negotiation. The way some people seem to think buying a player is as easy as picking up a phone and saying 'Hi this is our bid, yes or no please...yes? Ok cool send him over for a medical'. I wish.

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