You're reading: Guardian: Henrik Mkhitaryan orchestrates Shakhtar Donetsk’s great leap forward

Henrik Mkhitaryan is only 23 but this year he will almost certainly win his third Armenian player of the year award. So consistent has his excellence been that the surprising thing now is not that he was won so much so young, but that he did not win the award in 2010. The Metalurh Donetsk midfielder Karlen Mkrtchyan had better have made the most of that success, because there's little chance of Mkhitaryan relinquishing the award any time soon.

Mkhitaryan’s potential has been clear for some time – and he was a key figure as Armenia
briefly threatened to derail Ireland’s qualification for the Euros –
but it is this season, since the departure of Jádson, that he has really
blossomed at Shakhtar Donetsk.
So startling has his form been that he has forced Mircea Lucescu to
alter his usual policy of Brazilians at the front and eastern Europeans
at the back. When Chelsea face Shakhtar at the Donbass Arena on Tuesday,
there is no doubt whom they will have to stop.

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