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Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s injury problems at Manchester United continue.
The former Dortmund attacker has endured a frustrating start to his Old Trafford career, and his one Premier League start to date ended in somewhat brutal fashion when he was hauled off at half time by José Mourinho during the derby defeat to Manchester City last month.
Mkhitaryan has not played since that defeat due to injury, and while he was due to feature for Armenia in their World Cup qualifiers against Romania and Poland this week, his club have asked that he be withdrawn to work on his recovery.
Though he has not aggravated the thigh injury recently, and has in fact returned to training, the club feel that playing at this stage of his recovery could worsen the problem.
In a letter to the Armenian Football Federation, Man United’s head of medicine Steve McNally said:
“Henrikh is still undergoing late stage rehabilitation from the left thigh muscle injury that he sustained earlier this month whilst playing for Manchester United.
“In view of that I would be grateful if he could be allowed to withdraw from the national team for the forthcoming training camp and FIFA World Cup Qualifying matches in order to remain in Manchester to complete his rehabilitation.”
The FFA have since stated that the 27-year-old will “probably” now miss the games in order to regain full fitness.
It is unknown at this time if he will be fit enough to face Liverpool at Anfield in two weeks, but Mourinho will be mindful of rushing him back into the team again after it went horribly wrong against Man City.
