Arsenal: No Hard Feelings Over Henrikh Mkhitaryan Loss

Arsenal seemed to be hot on the trail of Henrikh Mkhitaryan but now, suddenly, it looks like all hope is lost in acquiring the Armenian.

May the recent updates to the Arsenal/Mkhitaryan rumors serve as a stern reminder to everyone (myself included) that no deal is ever done until it’s done. You wouldn’t think we would need a reminder, given the Jamie Vardy saga (or any other transfer saga, for that matter), but we do. We always do.

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Henrikh Mkhitaryan was supposedly going to be announced within the week. Based on what? Well, we don’t really know. But now, suddenly, out of the blue, Arsenal are not even in the same conversation as Mkhitaryan.

For starters, rumor has it that Manchester United are in pole position. According to agent Mino Raiola, that is. But that is irrelevant because according to Borussia Dortmund, you can qualify for pole position all you want, but there is no race to run.

“We have intensely discussed the question of an early transfer in all club bodies and came to the conclusion that Mkhitaryan will stay in Dortmund next season,” Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke told Bild.

He said all of this after confirming that there would be no contract extension for Mkhitaryan. However, just because there will be no extension doesn’t mean that there will be a transfer.

Dortmund have done this before. For some reason, key players are always wanting away from Dortmund and if they were to give in to every single instance, they would be left in quite the predicament. Robert Lewandowski faced a similar situation when he wished to join Bayern Munich. He was not allowed to until his contract ran up the following year.

That looks to be what Henrikh Mkhitaryan faces, despite agent Mino Raiola’s insistence that the Armenian wants to get away (to Manchester United, though).

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At the end of the day, you really can’t fault Dortmund for wanting to hang onto their players. These are guys that the team relies on and it feels like every year, they lose more and more crucial pieces. Guys that seemed so loyal suddenly want out – immediately. They already lost Mats Hummels and Ilkay Gundogan. It’s hard to believe that they would be able to completely recoup their losses if Mkhitaryan were to skip town as well.

Arsenal should certainly have a soft spot for this kind of situation. It wasn’t all that long ago that Arsenal was losing key players left and right. They weren’t even able to keep hold of their guys like Dortmund was because they (supposedly) needed the money.

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Whatever the case, Arsenal’s pursuits of a wide attacker now rest on Riyad Mahrez. That does not give me any warm and fuzzies. Not with how the Vardy ordeal went down when he suddenly became the ‘only option’. At the very least, I can still rest easy on the fact that we never really needed a new wide attacker. Sure would have been nice though.

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