Mkhitaryan brings more than just football skills to Manchester United

Published on: 21 February 2017

Any teething troubles that new Manchester United signing Henrikh Mkhitaryan may have had after arriving from Borussia Dortmund to the tune of £30million last summer are well and truly over.

Having earned himself a personal chant from United fans for his stupendous footwork against Sunderland, where he scored his team's opening goal, the 28-year-old Armenian midfielder is showing as much discipline off the field as he does when he's on it.

Mkhitarayan has a ritual of greeting kitchen staff in the morning before breakfast, which might be unusual, but definitely healthier than the world´s fastest man´s ritual of having breakfast at McDonald´s.

It's a healthy attitude towards his employers as well that marks the player out as one to watch, having already name-checked his former boss Jurgen Klopp as being key to helping him through his initial sidelining at Manchester United last summer. Now, he's touted as being a 'go-to' player choice for United boss José Mourinho.

A five-time Armenian footballer of the year, Mkhitarayan's no career slouch, which is something he might owe to his father, Hamlet Mkhitaryan, a prominent striker of FC Ararat Yerevan of the 1980s, his mother Marina Taschyan, who heads up the national teams department in the Armenian Football Federation, or elder sister Monica, who works at UEFA's headquarters.

It's a pretty decent bag of tricks that the midfielder is bringing to the United team, what with a strong head for self-awareness, and even his mastery of six European languages.

But, it's the type of talking he does on the pitch that will see the attacking midfielder continue to come into his own as something of a sporting ambassador for Armenia, despite the new love affair he's obviously having with his Premier League club.

Source: tribalfootball.com

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