Arsenal: Goal and assist does not cloud Henrikh Mkhitaryan disaster

Henrikh Mkhitaryan had a disaster against Chelsea. The Arsenal winger may have scored and recorded an assist, but it does not cloud his awful start to the new season.

It was an odd game, Arsenal’s trip to Stamford Bridge on Saturday evening. The 3-2 defeat was oddly deserved and not deserved simultaneously. Chelsea were much the better team. They controlled the game for large portions and dominated the midfield battle, especially in the second half. And yet, if you were to add up the quantity and quality of the chances, it was arguably they who had the better.

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This strange nature stretched to the performances of some of the players, none less than winger Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who was, like his team, simultaneously crucial and dire.

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Arsenal scored two goals. Mkhitaryan scored the first with a smart finish from a loose ball on the edge of the area, smartly and powerfully curling it through the oddly limp hand of Kepa Arrizabalaga at the near post. He then, just minutes later, assisted the second, firing a cut back into the penalty area that was emphatically turned into the goal by Alex Iwobi. It was two nice pieces of play indeed.

But it does not shroud the majority of his performance. Yes, Mkhitaryan was directly involved in the two goals that his team scored, as well as creating five chances in total with a series of cutbacks and crosses, but this was a very poor performance from the Armenian amid a team of very poor and yet strangely productive performances.

His lack of calmness, composure and quality on the ball was extremely stark. His touch let him down time and time again, his dribbling was poor, roundly dominated by Marcos Alonso thanks to the Chelsea defender’s superior pace and athleticism, and his passing was wayward, inaccurate and slow, much like many of his teammates.

Moreover, Mkhitaryan was directly to blame for the first goal, failing to track Alonso’s bursting run down the wing who then supplied Pedro with a square pass into the penalty area, and he and Hector Bellerin consistently struggled to contain Alonso and Willian down the left flank defensively and failed to get little out of them offensively.

This follows a similarly lacking display against Manchester City the week prior. Mkhitaryan almost seemed as if he was running empty, absent of his usual industry and energy, not pressing with the same intensity as last season, a little loose in his defensive work at the other end. It’s been a pitiable start to the season, to say the least.

Mkhitaryan may not necessarily deserve to be dropped. There are certainly other culprits who are worthy of question and criticism and also. But this hasn’t been the start to the campaign that was expected of him. Improvement is required.