Calling him Hendrikh with a Welsh, Irish or Scottish pronunciation of 'ch' on the 'kh' will be the death of the sports commentators unless they are Welsh, Irish or Scots.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan - just a smokescreen
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Calling him Hendrikh with a Welsh, Irish or Scottish pronunciation of 'ch' on the 'kh' will be the death of the sports commentators unless they are Welsh, Irish or Scots.
Red, I have no issue with anyone having a different opinion or view of things from my own, but calling me names when you can't see a point is just plain childish.
Needless to say, "Henri" could turn out to be the next Lampard if he continues scoring goals at that rate. The Lampard comparison made with regards to his playing style. Somebody previously compared him to Alberto but its unlikely that Aquilani played so many games in 2 seasons and neither was he a prolific goalscorer.
Forgot Aspas. I wonder if Downing will be joining Assaidi on the way out. I really hope we have plans to bring someone in who can add a bit of grit and steel in the midfield. Unless Rodgers sees Henderson playing deeper. And we've got Allen still. Looks like he will add to 'the group'. Also, where does this leave Shelvey, he might be gone too.
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the_khl
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My faith is still in a very young and fragile state when it come to Ibe, it'll need some adjustment as we go....
*clears throat*
*GO JORDON, GO JORDON, GO JORDON.... *
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the_khl
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The Aquilani comparison seems completely weird to me. I don't see many similar traits at all.
They've both got dark hair.
That's about it.
send out shelvey, wisdom, sterling and suso on loan to premiership teams.
I'm only messing fella - For what it's worth I happen to agree with you. I really hope we wrap up this deal. From everything I've read and seen of him he seems quality.
He'll be really onto a hiding for nothing if he ends up on the right, trying to cover up the Blackburn-esque legion of holes that that cunt will inevitably leave *everywhere*.
There's no choice now - he'll have to be known by a nickname, like 'Chicarito'. I tried translating 'Big Nose' into Armenian but all I got was this - մեծ քիթը - which, quite frankly, is no help whatsoever. It's just gibberish. If that's the best they can come up with for a language I'd politely suggest they give up and start speaking in English.
'Hooter' - that's a possibility, as it is catchy and can be used for endless tabloid puns, such as 'shooter', 'booter,' 'neuter' etc. 'Scouse' is another idea - I gather the Armenians like stew, and their favourite sounds pretty much like scouse, so it's apt, and cheap to get put on the back of a shirt. We'll get there, we just need to concentrate.
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the_khl
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GO մեծ քիթը, GO մեծ քիթը, GO մեծ քիթը
I'd sell Shelvey. Keep Wisdom and loan Sterling and Suso myself. Not quite sure why a 20 year old Spaniard coming in is better than Suso though. And not sure this Ghanain winger is any better than Sterling either.
What's so special about the cheese makers?
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the_khl
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I've just learned that his middle name is Hamlet. That's that settled then, enough Danish connection for me.
Here's Henrikh Hamlets top 10. Especially the two last goals are great, the rest pretty; deep run and cool finish
For comparison purpose only, top 10 goals from another midfielder we've been linked with:
Here's Henrikh Hamlets top 10. Especially the two last goals are great, the rest pretty; deep run and cool finish
For comparison purpose only, top 10 goals from another midfielder we've been linked with:
Liverpool target Henrikh Mkhitaryan owes much to heritage and hard work
Shakhtar's rising star comes from strong Armenian stock but had to graft to become one of eastern Europe's most exciting players
Shakhtar's rising star comes from strong Armenian stock but had to graft to become one of eastern Europe's most exciting players
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Henrikh Mkhitaryan has caught the attention of Europe's top clubs after shining for Shakhtar Donetsk. Photograph: Valerio Pennicino/Getty Images
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 Liverpoolhave 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.
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the_khl
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Haha.. very cruel indeed.
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the_khl
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That last goal is probably worth £20M on its own.
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the_khl
Guest
Just checking, you did see the other clip as well, right?
*ducks* *ducking* *duck*
Yep, 25 goals from midfield, even in Ukraine, can't be shrugged at.
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the_khl
Guest
He's not playing as a midfielder though.
An attacking midfielder is still a midfielder.
Has he been rumoured to sign with anyone else? Usually when they're not, we end up signing them
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the_khl
Guest
He's positioned just behind the striker.
Look, we can give it all sorts of names, but he's extremely attacking-minded. Much more so than say Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard or even Paul Scholes, who in my opinion is the definition of goal scoring midfielders.
Hamlet isn't one as he's positioned so far up that he's either second striker or at best deep lying forward.
So to say he's scored 25 goals from midfield - or even as an attacking midfielder - is wrong.
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