Henrikh Mkhitaryan is enjoying a promising start to his Arsenal career.
Our Armenian playmaker set up two of our three goals - his fourth and fifth assists in an Arsenal shirt - in the win at Ostersunds on Thursday and, after the game, Mkhitaryan and Danny Welbeck spoke to the media. Here’s what they said:
on the game…
DW: Yeah, the pitch was a bit hard but obviously we knew that, coming here to this pitch today, that it was going to be a bit difficult. With the players they’ve got, they like to keep the ball and manipulate it around the back. We had to keep our cool and show our patience with the ball ourselves. I thought sometimes we could have maybe played it forward a bit quicker and caught them out, but it was a nice and professional performance.
on the start…
HM: I think it was their first game for a while. We are in the season, so we keep playing and we are more practiced. But I can say, they have got a very good team, they try to show off their ability and skills, but we scored two goals at the beginning and it helped us easily.
on the importance of the competition - and trying to win it again…
HM: Why not? We have to keep fighting, we have to win every game and then at the end, we’ll see where we’re at.
on his return - and whether the Europa League is a big opportunity for him…
DW: Obviously, it’s a 3G pitch out there. I’ve had some knee injuries in the past but I made sure that I did my rehab pretty well. You hear little stories about coming and playing on 3G pitches after knee injuries, but I felt fine. The pitch was just a bit hard. I’m just looking forward to getting more minutes under my belt.
on the job being done and now players can rest for the second leg in order to prepare for the Carabao Cup final…
HM: No, I don’t think so. Because we have to focus in every game. It doesn’t matter if we have got a good result or not. We have to win in every game to get more confidence and to have better success. It doesn’t matter who we are going to play after the second leg, yes, we have a game in the cup final but we have to play with the same team, I think, and to win at home.
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