Jose Mourinho has showered Henrikh Mkhitaryan with praise after the winger opened his Manchester United goalscoring account against Zorya Luhansk on Thursday.
Mkhitaryan registered his maiden strike for the Red Devils in the 2-0 away victory to send his side into the next round of the Europa League after finally appearing to turn his Old Trafford career around.
The 27-year-old had initially struggled for form and fitness following his summer switch from Borussia Dortmund but, after featuring in United's past five matches, has begun to showcase the ability that saw United part with £27m for his services.
Mourinho told Sky Sports: "He has a strong mentality. He was very determined to fight against his difficult adaptation, and he's doing that in the best way.
"He worked really hard physically, tactically and the talent we know is there. The talent we knew what we were buying.
"He fought to improve tactically, he fought to improve physically, and now he is playing good in the Premier League, good in the Europa League and the EFL Cup, and now evolving a bit more happiness for him, so I'm very pleased."
Jose Mourinho has reached the knockout stages of every European competition he's entered as manager.
Job done. pic.twitter.com/3a9M9yMJM5
Zlatan Ibrahimovic's late goal capped a good performance from Mourinho's men as they finished top of group A in UEFA's club competition.
Before the encounter Mourinho had described the playing surface at Luhansk's stadium as "like a rock" but, after two pitch inspections and some last minute work on it by groundsmen, the pitch was deemed playable by UEFA and Mourinho thanked those involved for making the field of play much more worthy of having a football match played on it.
He continued: "The pitch was better today than yesterday and good enough to pay football on and we appreciate the efforts to give us a good pitch. There are no miracles in this cold weather, we know it's difficult to have a good pitch, so we appreciate the efforts to give us a good surface."
The 53-year-old, though, was less impressed with the behavious of Zorya's home support, who almost struck United reserve keeper Sergio Romero with a firecracker as skirmishes broke out in the stands of the Chornomorets stadium.
Mourinho added: "The support was beautiful and they don't need that to make it more beautiful. They just make it dangerous for the goalkeeper, so they don't need that.
"The stadium was beautiful, the support was good. Manchester United fans in the top were good too, we just don't need these things. Maybe UEFA is not happy and maybe UEFA now takes some money from Zorya, which I think Zorya doesn't deserve."
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