Jamie Carragher has said that he believes that Henrikh Mkhitaryan's pace makes him a more effective player than the likes of Arsenal's Mesut Ozil and Manchester City's David Silva.
The Sky Sports pundit spoke in the wake of Manchester United's 3-0 victory away to reigning Premier League champions Leicester City on Sunday (via the Daily Mirror) and claimed that Mkhitaryan's burst of pace made him a more formidable foe to deal with than his counterparts.
The forward scored one and assisted another of the Red Devils' strikes against Claudio Ranieri's Foxes at the King Power Stadium, with his solo effort seeing Mkhitaryan strip Wes Morgan and Robert Huth for pace before finishing past Kasper Schmeichel.
Carragher said: He (Mkhitaryan) has got something that very few players in that position have, which is pace.
You think of Juan Mata, Mesut Ozil, David Silva “ great technicians “ but they don't have that pace, and I think that was vital in the first goal.�
Mkhitaryan's renaissance at Old Trafford has continued since the turn of the year after the 27-year-old was largely underused by manager Jose Mourinho in the opening months of the campaign.
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The Armenia international struggled for form and fitness after he completed a reported £35m move from Borussia Dortmund in the summer, and featured just nine times for his new side in the first four months of the season.
Since December 1, though, Mkhitaryan has made 13 appearances and bagged four goals and two assists in the process and, speaking in the aftermath of the win in the Midlands, Mourinho revealed just why he had used Mkhitaryan so sparingly to begin with.
He said: "Sometimes the best way to protect players is not to play them. I think in your chair, your perspective is always 'if a player is not playing the manager is disturbing him', but this is not true.
"Sometimes we don't play players, we protect them, and Mkhitaryan was one of these cases.
"He was being protected and he was adapting and I can see not just what you see, because you see the magic things he can do on the pitch. But I also see other things that I want to see and Mkhitaryan is playing really, really well."
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