Mkhitaryan runs away with Matchday 10 vote
Munich - A superlative attacking midfield display from Borussia Dortmund playmaker Henrikh Mkhitaryan in the Revierderby helped the Armenian to run away with the Matchday 10 Player of the Week vote.
Playmaker supreme
Dortmund won 3-1 against local rivals FC Schalke 04 and Mkhitaryan demonstrated the full array of his playmaking abilities. As many as 58 per cent of bundesliga.com readers voted for the 24-year-old, giving him his second Player of the Week gong this season after his brace against Eintracht Frankfurt on Matchday 4.
For those traditionalists who believe a playmaker’s passes are more important than his goals, Mkhitaryan’s was a performance for the ages. His beautifully weighted ball in the 17th minute allowed Marco Reus to cross for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who duly opened the scoring. As if the secondary assist was just a warning, Mkhitaryan then picked up two genuine assists. The first was a pass that invited Nuri Sahin to strike from 20 yards for his first goal of the season, while the second was the mark of a modern creative master.
He drove 70 yards after picking the ball up on the edge of his box and then displayed superb vision to slide across for Jakub Blaszczykowski, who made no mistake in making it 3-1. Mkhitaryan’s performance blew away his challengers for the award, with second-placed Mario Mandzukic's brace from the bench to lead FC Bayern München to a 3-2 victory over Hertha Berlin only gaining him 19 per cent of the vote.
Okazaki and Perisic leave their mark
In third place with 12 per cent of the vote came 1. FSV Mainz 05 forward Shinji Okazaki, who hit a brace to help his side beat Eintracht Braunschweig 2-0. His first goal was a thing of beauty, an over-the-shoulder volley after eight minutes, before he completed his first-ever Bundesliga brace with 68 minutes on the clock.
Ivan Perisic’s breakthrough performance for VfL Wolfsburg in their 3-0 win over SV Werder Bremen brought him eight per cent of readers’ votes. His assist for Ivica Olic's second goal was impressive enough, but he then crowned a dynamic display with his first goal of the season in the 89th minute.
Firmino goes top
Hoffenheim’s Brazilian talent Roberto Firmino may have only garnered four per cent of votes, but that should in no way distract from a mercurial display. His two goals as 1899 Hoffenheim became the first team to win at Hannover 96’s HDI-Arena took the 22-year-old joint top of the goalscorers’ chart with seven strikes to his name.
See for yourself while Henrikh Mkhitaryan was Matchday 10's best player, courtesy of the official Bundesliga YouTube channel:
