Mkhitaryan hogs headlines as goals flow

FC Shakhtar Donetsk forward Henrik Mkhitaryan insisted he does not "read too much into scoring" but the headlines are difficult to ignore at the moment. He took his tally to 14 in 11 games for the club this season with a goal in each half in a 2-0 win against UEFA Champions League debutants FC Nordsjælland. It was, admitted Nicolai Stokholm, a steep learning curve in Ukraine, but the Danish title holders leave with pride and hope for the rest of Group E.

Henrik Mkhitaryan, Shakhtar forward
My team-mates have really helped out by creating opportunities for me. I don't tend to read too much into scoring and try to remain level-headed. It's football and you may only have one chance, so you always have to take it or you may lose. I am always trying to stay relaxed out on the pitch and take each chance as it comes.

I am feeling great at the moment, having scored two goals in my first Champions League game of the season and, of course, we won. But we have another five games left and these will be very difficult for us. We will be doing everything we can to make sure that we play well and try and win these matches.

Luiz Adriano, Shakhtar forward
[Nordsjælland] were a very good side who knew how to play and they were very well prepared. However, we had done our homework and knew what we needed to do in order to win. We had a number of chances to score more goals, but unfortunately we weren't able to take them.

Overall I am happy with how we played. It was really important for us to score because we were playing at home. I am really happy that we managed to score in the first half because this took some of the pressure off.

Nicolai Stokholm, Nordsjælland midfielder
It was good to get a feel of the game – it was new for everyone, the whole team and the whole club. But now we have that experience and there is a lot that we can take with us into the next games, but of course we want some points.

They had a lot more chances. We enjoyed some possession but we need to be able to create chances and that's what we have to learn while also being wary of our opponents on the counterattack. But there were some good things and of course some things we need to change going into our next game.

Mikkel Beckmann, Nordsjælland forward
We showed who we were and I am a little disappointed by the result because I hate losing. When you look at the result I am also a little proud because we played 43 or 44 good minutes, but we gave two goals away, which is not good enough. We needed to keep the ball but we gave it away and the opener was a stupid goal. They put us under a lot of pressure in the second half.

We were a little bit nervous but we played very well at the beginning. I don't think the crowd could see we were nervous but the players were a little bit because we were playing our first Champions League game.