Arsenal: There is no reason not to start Henrikh Mkhitaryan vs Swansea

Arsenal will include Henrikh Mkhitaryan in their matchday squad to face Swansea City, but will they start him? There is literally no reason not to.

Arsenal will have had about a week to get Henrikh Mkhitaryan integrated when they travel to Swansea City on Tuesday. Manchester United have already used Alexis Sanchez in the FA Cup, showing no desire to slowly introduce him to the set-up, which is an overrated policy anyway.

Arsene Wenger was asked if he planned to start Mkhitaryan against Swansea and in typical Wenger fashion he provided no real answer.

“I haven’t decided that yet,” was Wenger’s answer. To which I wish someone would have asked, ‘well why the hell not?’

Wenger did confirm that Mkhitaryan would be in the squad, but there is quite literally no reason not to start the guy. And if I have to hear Wenger speak about the need to acclimate him into the Arsenal set up I will lose my mind.

Here’s what’s happening at the club – Alexis was a bit of a festering wound on the starting XI, so we got rid of him. While waiting for the deal to be completed, it became obvious that the quality behind Alexis and Mesut Ozil was still, unsurprisingly, lacking. No one was at their level.

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So Alex Iwobi was deployed, who continues to show promise but is nowhere near the level required to be a regular in the starting XI.

In comes Mkhitaryan, a world-renowned creator who has Premier League experience, is in the prime of his career, if not the tail-end of that prime, and is just an all-around excellent attacker. He is walking into an Arsenal attack that, let’s be honest, doesn’t have that much tactical nous. It’s all about movement off the ball and linking up with team mates, but there’s no great overarching schematic that he has to adhere to.

The only possible argument that could be made is if he hasn’t yet linked up with his team mates, but that comes with time on the pitch, not in training. Try to tell me Iwobi is more linked up with his team mates than Mkhitaryan could be.

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I want to believe that there isn’t a shadow of a doubt that Mkhitaryan will start. But this is Arsenal. Far stranger things have happened, and will continue to happen, so long as Arsene Wenger is in charge. I just hope to God we can play the game without a rain cloud of frustration from Mkhitaryan being on the bench.

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