Mkhi dip a big worry

> United have no easy answer to their Mkhitaryan problem

ROMELU LUKAKU has attracted much of the criticism for Manchester United’s recent sub-par performances, but with Zlatan Ibrahimovic still sidelined, Jose Mourinho has little option but to defend his “untouchable” striker and persist playing him.

The Portuguese has other fires to fight in any case and the most urgent may be located directly behind Lukaku, where the decline of United’s creator-in-chief needs to be quickly arrested.

Take a glance at the basic raw numbers and it is hard to deny that Henrikh Mkhitaryan enjoyed an excellent start to the season.

The playmaker registered five assists in his opening three league games, each of which was an authoritative United win that promised much for the season ahead.

Mkhitaryan was more than meeting his quotas back then, even if some of the assists had more to do with the scorer’s finishing than his own vision and passing.

When the final of the five came, a deflected corner that Marcus Rashford volleyed home against Leicester City, the Armenian’s productive start all seemed a little unsustainable. Indeed, so it was.

His personal numbers since those first three games do not make for pleasant reading. Mkhitaryan has failed to set up one of his teammates in the league since August and he has scored just once all season, notching with a late finish against an Everton side ready to throw in the towel.

A single strike and a single assist on the Champions League trip to CSKA Moscow is all he has managed in other competitions too.

It is, all told, seven games since his last goal or assist. Rather than playing ‘in the hole’, Mkhitaryan seems to have fallen down one and United have suffered as a result.

Incredibly, since the start of September, Mourinho’s side have created less than Stoke City, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth, three clubs experiencing difficulties at the wrong end of the table.

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