Henrikh heart always been at

HENRIKH Mkhitaryan signed for Manchester United to honour the father he lost as a seven-year-old.

When he puts pen to paper on a three-and-a-half-year contract at Arsenal, he will be doing it for himself.

As a result, Arsene Wenger will be inheriting a player who has been released from a huge burden of duty both on and off the pitch.

That is why a United flop could be the star to provide the high notes for a 67-yearold manager’s swansong.

Much has been made this week of the comments the young Armenia international made in a UEFA interview in 2009.

“My favourite team is Arsenal,” he said. “I like their attacking play and fast style. Moreover, Arsene Wenger puts faith in young players while demanding results at the same time. I like that and want to play there one day.”

Wenger has expressed an interest in making that happen at various stages – although not till now a very concerted one.

When Mkhitaryan first had a chance to come to the Premier League, it was with Liverpool under Brendan Rodgers in 2013, but at that stage he felt underprepared.

“Half of me thought I had to go there, the other half was not so confident,” he said subsequently. “I felt the gap to the Premier League might be too big for a skinny player from the Ukrainian league.”

That underlying belief explains why times have been so hard for Mkhitaryan in Manchester.

At Dortmund, his eventual destination that summer, he was nurtured by Jurgen Klopp on a personal level – something he hinted was missing under Jose Mourinho when he subsequently struggled to settle at Old Trafford. “Mourinho is friendly but maybe a little harder,” he said 12 months ago. “Maybe he doesn’t hug his players a lot like Jurgen Klopp.

“Different managers give confidence in different ways; some by hugging, others by talking or conversations.”

Yet when the Special One had come knocking the previous summer, there had been no need for conversation.

This was a chance to pay homage to his father Hamlet Mkhitaryan, whose own career in France had been cut so short when he suffered a brain tumour at the age of 33. “When you walk on to the pitch at Old Trafford it is not just a pitch, it is a stage,” Mkhitaryan later said.

“If my father could see me on that stage, I think he would be very proud. I was always kind of chasing him and, even though he’s not here, he helped me get to this place.”

It was a stage he rarely graced. Mkhitaryan was instrumental in United winning the Europa League but largely starred away from home.

A stinker in the intense glare of the Manchester derby early in his United career had put him on the back foot and, after an impressive start to this season, a poor display against Chelsea in November seems to have ended his United days.

He has started just one Premier League game since. He is out of the squad for Burnley today. Bottom line? Mourinho no longer seems to trust his £28million signing and resents that he is so reluctant to fulfil any defensive duties.

Wenger, on the other hand, will lift his heart and give him his head. Nobody shouts at Alexis Sanchez or Mesut Ozil about tracking back. The Arsenal manager wants his attacking players to attack.

Into that mix, Wenger wants to throw Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, reuniting a Dortmund partnership that in 2015-16 produced 54 goals between them.

In those days Mkhitaryan – who spent four months in Sao Paolo on a football exchange as a teenager – was in a very different mood.

“When you’re sad, you can’t be lucky,” he once said.

“This is something I learnt from the Brazilian culture. But in my last season at Dortmund we played with enthusiasm.

“We played a crazy, superattacking style and we enjoyed every minute on the pitch.

“When you’re happy, good things happen on the pitch.”

Wenger puts faith in youth, I want to play there one day