While he expects Leicester City to provide difficult opposition on Saturday, Henrikh Mkhitaryan is confident United can avoid the pitfalls which punctured the Reds’ Old Trafford form last season.
United were held to 10 draws in 19 home Premier League games in 2016/17 but, having opened the new season with a comprehensive 4-0 drubbing of West Ham United in M16, Armenian schemer Mkhitaryan expects an upturn in fortunes on home turf this time around.
“I think, this year, we are going to have more wins,” Henrikh told United Review. “Last year, we drew too many games and that was the problem. We could create many chances to score, but we couldn’t; I don’t know, maybe we had no luck, or maybe the luck was more in Europa League games but, this year, we are focused on improving that aspect: to win the games, and to not have too many draws.”
Having followed the win over West Ham with an equally emphatic 4-0 success at Swansea City last weekend, the Reds have made a perfect start to the new season. Not that Jose Mourinho’s men are getting carried away, according to Mkhitaryan.
“It’s a very good start, but we still have to play 36 games,” he said. “Every game is a new game, and it doesn’t matter about what we have done before.
“Now we are going to play Leicester and it won’t be easy because they have started very well as well. Of course, they lost the first game 4-3 [at Arsenal] but they were amazing. In the second game [against Brighton], they won 2-0, so it’s going to be very hard. It’s always tough to play Leicester, they are very good and they are playing very well.
“Of course, for us, we have a big responsibility because we are the first in the table after two games, but we will try to win the third game, and to make sure everything goes very well.”
