Henrikh Mkhitaryan slams Unai Emery for his tactics at Arsenal

Henrikh Mkhitaryan is currently on loan at AS Roma and he has hit out at Arsenal boss, Unai Emery for the tactics he employed at the Emirates. Mkhitaryan revealed that he was forced to play as a winger but had to build up play with the defensive midfielders.

During an interview with FourFourTwo, the former Manchester United star said:

He paid more attention to tactics, so my role changed. I was starting as a winger, but had to build play with the defensive midfielder. It's why I couldn't contribute as many goals or assists.

Talking about his loan move to AS Roma, he said:

I like to play more freely and move wherever there's space, but you have to do the job that the manager asks. I'm 30 years old now and I like to play football, not just sit on the bench and waste my time.

Emery and [head of football] Raul Sanllehi assured me I was important for Arsenal, but I signed for Roma because they believed in me more.

Mkhitaryan has started more games for his country than his club this season and has scored just one goal and assisted once in Serie A.

Unai Emery, meanwhile, is under immense pressure at Arsenal as calls for his sacking grow louder with each week.

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Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

Shambhu's favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and the Argentine attaining glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment. He believes only Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland could replicate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's rivalry in the years to come. His favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson due to the Scot's unmatched longevity at the top.

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Edited by Arvind Sriram