Mkhitaryan: tactical changes key to win
Henrikh Mkhitaryan believes a tactical alteration in the first half was the key to Manchester United’s dominant 3-0 victory over Leicester City on Sunday, the official website of Manchester United reports.
The Reds began the game with Mkhitaryan playing from the left and Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Marcus Rashford leading the line in a 4-4-2 formation, before Jose Mourinho opted to revert to a more familiar 4-2-3-1 set-up midway through the half, with Mkhitaryan moving from the left flank to operate in the number 10 role.
It proved to be a masterstroke as quickfire goals from Mkhitaryan and Ibrahimovic just before the break put United firmly in control.
The impressive Armenian, who took the club’s official Man of the Match award with 83 per cent of the vote, then set up Juan Mata for the third early in the second half as the Reds sealed a comfortable away win.
But Mkhitaryan pinpointed the first-half positional changes as the moment the Reds seized control at the King Power Stadium.
Speaking to MUTV after the game, he said, “I can say we didn’t start the game very well but during the game, when the manager changed the formation and I came to the middle as a 10 and Marcus Rashford started to play as a winger, I think we started to control the ball more and had more chances to score and finally we did.
“After my first goal, I can say that we played very well, we were controlled during the whole game and we were dominating the ball, so that’s why we scored the second and third goals.”
A scrappy first half in the East Midlands came to life in the 42nd minute, when Mkhitaryan latched onto Chris Smalling’s knockdown and sprinted the entire length of the Leicester half before keeping his composure to fire past Leicester keeper Kasper Schmeichel.
Describing his fifth goal of the season, the 28-year-old said: “The only thing I was thinking was to control that ball and I think I did two in one. I controlled the ball and [went] past Robert Huth, then I had free space in front of me and I said I had to accelerate, to dribble, to go forward and then, when I was in front of the goalkeeper, I saw the far post open so I shot it there. It rebounded a little bit but finally the ball went into the net.”
Mkhitaryan capped off a fine individual display by linking up with Mata, who tucked away the third goal to clinch the three points for the Reds in the 49th minute, and believes he is developing a good understanding with the Spaniard.
Henrikh said: “He’s a world-class player and I knew that if I controlled that ball, he has to open up himself in the space and that’s what happened. I just played it there because I knew that he was going to be there and he scored a nice goal.”
The result ended a sequence of three successive draws in the Premier League for United – who now sit just a point behind fifth-placed Liverpool and two adrift of Arsenal in fourth, with both teams losing on Saturday to Hull City and Chelsea respectively. Although Mkhitaryan acknowledged the importance of winning to apply pressure on rival teams, he admitted United’s sole focus has been on taking care of their own business.
He added: “The most important [thing] was that we didn’t think about our opponents; they lost their games but we have been concentrated on our game. That’s what we did well because in the last game against Hull City we were thinking that our opponents had lost their game and we were thinking we had to win that game and were pushing too much.
“This time we didn’t and in this game we were more fresh in our head and were thinking only to win this game and then everything will be okay.”
