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Henrik Mkhitaryan is set to return to Arsenal at the end of the season.
The Armenian international is on a season long loan with Roma in Serie A, who made an offer to buy him for £8.5 million in January. That was rejected by the Gunners, who wanted twice as much, and the Italian side are unlikely to make a new bid for a player who will only have 12 months on his contract left to run this summer.
That puts his future in some doubt as he cannot expect a warm welcome back by Arsenal, having burned his bridges at the Emirates with comments about how he did not enjoy playing in North London. Whilst the remarks were aimed more at Unai Emery than his successor, Mikel Arteta, is hard to envisage the 31 year old forming part of the Spaniard’s plans for the future.
Mkhitaryan has had his share of injury problems at Roma, and missed a month with a thigh strain, but returned to the team last week, scoring in the defeat against Bologna.
Andy is an exiled English football fan living in Cyprus. He loves all sports but football is his abiding passion, and he still has dreams every now and then about scoring the winning goal in a Wembley Cup Final, even though his playing days are long gone. He follows most major leagues, across Europe at least, and has a favoured team in each. When he’s not watching, listening, reading or downloading podcasts about football, he spend his time worrying about his beloved Arsenal.