'Mourinho told me I was sh*t' - Ex-Man Utd star talks relationship with the 'Special One'

Martin Macdonald

• 10 Oct 2025 07:01 CDT
• 2 min read

News

Former Manchester United star Henrikh Mkhitaryan has revealed that Jose Mourinho once called him "sh*t" during their time together at Old Trafford.

It was actually Mourinho that signed the Armenian midfielder for Man Utd in 2016 following a dazzling season with Borussia Dortmund in the German Bundesliga in which he was named Player of the Year.

However, the pair never really got on and it got to the point when Mourinho started asking Mkhitaryan to leave the club so he could conclude a swap deal with Arsenal for Alexis Sanchez.

In his new autobiography, My Life Always at the Centre, the current Inter midfielder detailed his relationship with his Portuguese boss at the time.

"I told him, you’ve been criticising me for a year-and-a-half now, ever since I arrived at Manchester United," he writes.

"Mourinho told me I was ‘s***’ and I just lost my temper. ‘You are the s***. An enormous one.’

"He replied: ‘Get out of here, I never want to see you again.’

"During the training sessions, the coach said nothing to me, he remained at a religious level of silence, but every evening he’d send me a message via WhatsApp. ‘Miki, leave, please.’

"The situation had become grotesque. I’d reply every time with the same copy and paste response. I will leave if I find the right team, otherwise I’ll wait for the summer.

"Towards the middle of January, the text changed slightly. ‘Miki, please leave, that way I can get Alexis Sanchez.’

"Mino Raiola was working on this exchange with Arsenal. So my response mutated too. ‘I am not leaving just to do you a favour, and please stop writing to me. If you want, talk to Mino.’"

Mkhitaryan eventually left for Arsenal as Sanchez arrived at United and both deals proved failures, though the Chilean flopped much more than his counterpart.

Mkhitaryan and Mourinho reunite

He would eventually reunite with Mourinho at Roma and the pair would help the club to their first ever major European trophy, the Europa Conference League.

Mkhitaryan credits Mourinho for his winning mentality at the time.

"'We're going to win in Europe', we often said it to each other in the Trigoria locker room,” the Armenian recalls in his book.

“Before the final, Mourinho had the entire training centre plastered with photos of the trophy, accompanied by the slogan WE MUST WIN in capital letters. They were everywhere. In the locker room, in the corridors, in the bedrooms, in the kitchen, in the bathroom.

"We got changed and thought about victory. We walked and thought about victory. We fell asleep and thought about victory. We smelled the food and thought about victory. Even while we were p*ssing, we thought about victory."

Roma defeated Feyenoord 1-0 in the first ever Conference League final in 2022.

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