Staff at Manchester United have confirmed that Henrikh Mkhitaryan attempted to join an ‘Old Trafford Experience’ tour before a guide intervened and sent him back to training.
The Armenia international had become desperate to see the Old Trafford turf up close and to see where United’s players get changed before games, so attempted to take a tour along with a group of tourists.
Mkhitaryan purchased his £25 ticket and was halfway through the trip before suspicions were aroused by his monogrammed MUFC tracksuit.
“The lad [Henrikh Mkhitaryan] was really enjoying the tour and I thought it was sweet how he had the full training gear on, as if he were a real Manchester United player,” tour guide Francis Baker told FourFourTwo.
“But after a while his questions became weird. He asked me how someone with, for example, 60-plus international caps and an impressive track record for Borussia Dortmund would go about getting onto the pitch.
“I told him that nobody gets to go on the pitch on the tour, but he seemed to think he’d at least get the odd appearance in a League Cup game.
“Then I twigged that he was that guy [Henrikh Mkhitaryan] who signed in the summer. I ejected him from the tour despite his pleading that he wanted to experience just once what it felt like to stand inside the United dressing room.”
This isn’t the first time a United player has experienced a dramatic slide down the pecking order. Towards the end of his spell at Old Trafford, Radamel Falcao was employed as a steward, while Eric Djemba-Djemba was found to have been created by a database error in Championship Manager 03-04.
Manchester United have neither confirmed nor denied that Mkhitaryan was one of the fans discovered hiding in the Old Trafford toilets after a tour last week in a bid to be in the stadium for the game against Arsenal.
