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Mnogo hvaljen clanak autora @AdamBomb1945, kruzi netom za Mikija :
So in the past few days/weeks I have seen mass panic about the impending exit of Mkhitaryan to Manchester United. While opinion on the transfer is divided, many supporters feel betrayed in a way not felt since a certain Bavarian left to a certain club only 3 short years ago. I've personally reacted badly to this transfer, and probably (read: definitely) regret some of my reaction to this transfer. Mkhitaryan is a great player, and will be missed in Dortmund. Whether he succeeds in England is no longer of concern to me; it is pointless to keep a grudge on a player, and is immature of me (or anyone) to hope that he fails. The schadenfreude that some will get from his transfer is irresponsible, as a player wanting to progress his career is up to him.
To get off my soapbox, and relate more to the title of this essay, a leaving Mkhitaryan proposes a question that we must answer: who do Dortmund need to buy to replace him, and why is it not Schurrle? Okay, I jumped the gun a bit, but there is near unanimous support for not buying Schurrle, and growing cries to get Götze back despite what he did, because Schurrle is so unappealing both in regard to cost and in regard to performance. To find out what Dortmund need as a replacement, we must first analyze what made Miki so good and so crucial to the side.
1. Mkhitaryan is very flexible, and has been played in many, many positions throughout the season. Mkhitaryan mainly played in the right attacking midfield role this season, but was played significantly as the Center attacking midfielder last year, and a deeper number 8 for Shaktar. Yet, Mkhitaryan was not only played on the right this season. In the Rückrunde, Thomas Tuchel started to deviate from a 4-1-4-1 to a more fluid 5-3-2 3-5-2 combination. With both of these formations, there was no orthodox Right winger, making Mkhitaryan adapt to a more condensed central role. In matches like the DFB Pokal semifinal in Berlin, Mkhitaryan was played as more of a right back/wing combo. In the match against Stuttgart, he played in the role of Ilkay Gundogan, prompting many, including myself to see him as the natural replacement for Ilkay moving forward. The main point of note in this is that Miki was not only very flexible in his positioning, but he absolutely excelled in these positions. When an attacking mid replaces Durm at wingback, you can tell he is reliable just about everywhere.
2. Mkhitaryan excels at a few very important points: finishing, pace, dribbling, and work-rate. A testament to Mkhitaryan's skill is his ability to track back, running all the way down the pitch and still being able to position himself to get on the scoresheet. The absolute epitome of his play ironically happened on Match Day 1 against Gladbach. This Webm shows it all: VIDEO . Watch it a couple times and you can notice a couple things about Miki and his counter parts. The moment the ball is won, Miki immediately puts his head down and starts sprinting up the pitch. This is in a system that is not specifically meant for countering, but just a testament to his natural instinct. Compare him to club golden-boy Marco Reus. Reus was actually fit for this match (surprising, I know) and just slowly starts up on his run. Is there anything wrong with this? In short, no; Reus has space around him to receive the ball, and can then transition slowly into their shape during possession. However, this shows the workrate of Mkhitaryan to a great extent, running like 70m in 9 seconds. This was not a time where Dortmund were losing and in need of a goal, but Miki worked extremely hard to be in position to score the tap-in. Another example can be seen in VIDEO II . Look at how far out Mkhitaryan is when Auba wins the ball. Miki sprints 40m in just a few seconds, takes the ball neatly in stride, dribbles past the keeper, and slots the ball in. All parts of this are significant; his workrate, his touch, his dribbling, and his ability to actually finish when he is past the keeper. I will never not be bitter about that miss.
What I am trying to accomplish by wasting millions of bytes of data on an internet forum where I shitpost more than makes sense is that Mkhitaryan is irreplaceable in some aspects. I have very rarely ever seen a winger with such a good workrate, with other skills as well. What I mean is that Miki wasn't using his work-rate to hide the fact he was not technically good, or smart with the ball etc, like a certain midfielder we all love named Fisch. This aspect of him is not replaceable, especially for Dortmund. I fail to think of a single winger with that type of work-rate that has that skill in the entire world, let alone in the pool of transfer targets for Dortmund. This loss may be hypothetically covered by the signing of Rode, adding another hard worker to the squad. While literally everyone loves Weigl, he doesn't possess the speed or the intelligence to compensate for the lack of speed (yet) to be total stopper in the middle. Maybe Rode is part of Tuchels Tactical Shift, compensating for Miki's contributions defensively rather than Ilkay's contributions offensively, which leads us to who I predict will soon become the natural replacement for Miki...
To get off my soapbox, and relate more to the title of this essay, a leaving Mkhitaryan proposes a question that we must answer: who do Dortmund need to buy to replace him, and why is it not Schurrle? Okay, I jumped the gun a bit, but there is near unanimous support for not buying Schurrle, and growing cries to get Götze back despite what he did, because Schurrle is so unappealing both in regard to cost and in regard to performance. To find out what Dortmund need as a replacement, we must first analyze what made Miki so good and so crucial to the side.
1. Mkhitaryan is very flexible, and has been played in many, many positions throughout the season. Mkhitaryan mainly played in the right attacking midfield role this season, but was played significantly as the Center attacking midfielder last year, and a deeper number 8 for Shaktar. Yet, Mkhitaryan was not only played on the right this season. In the Rückrunde, Thomas Tuchel started to deviate from a 4-1-4-1 to a more fluid 5-3-2 3-5-2 combination. With both of these formations, there was no orthodox Right winger, making Mkhitaryan adapt to a more condensed central role. In matches like the DFB Pokal semifinal in Berlin, Mkhitaryan was played as more of a right back/wing combo. In the match against Stuttgart, he played in the role of Ilkay Gundogan, prompting many, including myself to see him as the natural replacement for Ilkay moving forward. The main point of note in this is that Miki was not only very flexible in his positioning, but he absolutely excelled in these positions. When an attacking mid replaces Durm at wingback, you can tell he is reliable just about everywhere.
2. Mkhitaryan excels at a few very important points: finishing, pace, dribbling, and work-rate. A testament to Mkhitaryan's skill is his ability to track back, running all the way down the pitch and still being able to position himself to get on the scoresheet. The absolute epitome of his play ironically happened on Match Day 1 against Gladbach. This Webm shows it all: VIDEO . Watch it a couple times and you can notice a couple things about Miki and his counter parts. The moment the ball is won, Miki immediately puts his head down and starts sprinting up the pitch. This is in a system that is not specifically meant for countering, but just a testament to his natural instinct. Compare him to club golden-boy Marco Reus. Reus was actually fit for this match (surprising, I know) and just slowly starts up on his run. Is there anything wrong with this? In short, no; Reus has space around him to receive the ball, and can then transition slowly into their shape during possession. However, this shows the workrate of Mkhitaryan to a great extent, running like 70m in 9 seconds. This was not a time where Dortmund were losing and in need of a goal, but Miki worked extremely hard to be in position to score the tap-in. Another example can be seen in VIDEO II . Look at how far out Mkhitaryan is when Auba wins the ball. Miki sprints 40m in just a few seconds, takes the ball neatly in stride, dribbles past the keeper, and slots the ball in. All parts of this are significant; his workrate, his touch, his dribbling, and his ability to actually finish when he is past the keeper. I will never not be bitter about that miss.
What I am trying to accomplish by wasting millions of bytes of data on an internet forum where I shitpost more than makes sense is that Mkhitaryan is irreplaceable in some aspects. I have very rarely ever seen a winger with such a good workrate, with other skills as well. What I mean is that Miki wasn't using his work-rate to hide the fact he was not technically good, or smart with the ball etc, like a certain midfielder we all love named Fisch. This aspect of him is not replaceable, especially for Dortmund. I fail to think of a single winger with that type of work-rate that has that skill in the entire world, let alone in the pool of transfer targets for Dortmund. This loss may be hypothetically covered by the signing of Rode, adding another hard worker to the squad. While literally everyone loves Weigl, he doesn't possess the speed or the intelligence to compensate for the lack of speed (yet) to be total stopper in the middle. Maybe Rode is part of Tuchels Tactical Shift, compensating for Miki's contributions defensively rather than Ilkay's contributions offensively, which leads us to who I predict will soon become the natural replacement for Miki...
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