Mkhitaryan credits teammates for goalscoring exploits

Mkhitaryan’s first-half strike broke the deadlock and set the Giallorossi on the way to victory over Torino, eventually running out 3-1 winners thanks to further goals from Jordan Veretout and Lorenzo Pellegrini.

With five assists also to his credit already this term, the Armenian is in prolific form in front of goal.

“I didn’t expect to score so many [by now] – I have to thank my teammates for that,” Mkhitaryan said.

“They are not my goals, they are the team's goals. I do everything I can in order to contribute to the team.”

He added: “With each game we are growing and improving. We knew it would be a tough game and we made sure we prepared well, and I think we deserved this win.

“We let off a bit in the final 10 minutes, we had a few chances to counter-attack but we didn’t make the most of them. They created a few problems for us, so we will have to analyse that and then look ahead.”

The Giallorossi, who are now in the top four, have games against Atalanta (Sunday) and Cagliari (Wednesday) before the winter break.

“We need to first of all make sure we recover well from this game – then after that we can worry about the next game [against Atalanta],” he said.

“It won’t be easy, no game is easy.

“It’s December, it’s too early to look at the league table. We’ll take things game-by-game and then at the end we will see where we are.

“It’s a strange season, all the teams are close together, we need to think about going on a run and winning games.”