When Mino Raiola held negotiations __with Ed Woodward and friends at Manchester United over the transfer of his other client this summer, a number of issues would have been raised: What are United’s targets for the upcoming season? How often will Zlatan Ibrahimovic play? How much will Zlatan Ibrahimovic earn? Will Zlatan Ibrahimovic have to learn how to dab?
It is doubtful that Zorya Luhansk was ever a subject of conversation. Nor too the Europa League. And yet, here we are, little over a month and a half into the season, and Manchester United are already having to call upon their star striker against a side not even top of the Ukrainian Premier League. This was not what Raiola or Ibrahimovic would have envisaged.
Jose Mourinho discussed plenty in his pre-match press conference ahead of the Europa League group-stage tie against the Ukrainians. Luke Shaw would not play; Anthony Martial might; Sam Allardyce deserves sympathy; Wayne Rooney is struggling because of the media. Then, rather matter-of-factly, as if it were not even worthy of explanation, he offered two simple words: “Zlatan starts.”
It was never meant to be like this. Ibrahimovic was the luxury coat of paint on his manager’s car, the cherry atop his cake, the expensive dinnerware that would be used only when the finest guests came round. But Mourinho will be forced to use his best cutlery for the visit of a side we barely knew existed before the season began.
The reason perhaps lies in the striker’s role not only as a goalscorer or a focal point for the attack, but as an on-field lieutenant charged __with carrying out his manager’s commands to the tee. “Sometimes people say the team has no leaders, it’s this, it’s that, but what we need is everybody with the same kind of mentality,” Mourinho said in July. “I like communication and push them to communicate. I give a lot of instruction in training. It’s difficult for me to do the same in matches so I need guys on the pitch to read the game, to understand what we want. Zlatan is going to be one of them.” Wayne Rooney is the captain of this side, but Ibrahimovic is their true leader.
It will not be the first time he is used against lowly opposition. He is the only player to have featured in each of Manchester United’s nine games in all competitions so far this season. He has played 90 minutes in all six Premier League games, with Mourinho not seeing fit to substitute him even as they led Leicester 4-0. He was called upon against Feyenoord. He was even brought in to help rescue the side against Northampton. David de Gea, Eric Bailly, even captain Wayne Rooney, have sat out at least one fixture each. Are United really so utterly dependent on a 34-year-old striker?
“We have two matches and then, for him, it is two weeks without football,” the manager later offered in mitigation. “He has to play tomorrow and then Stoke. Then he will have plenty of time to rest. It is different for the other players who go off with the national teams.” But this was surely never the plan.
Certainly not going by the manager’s comments in August. “I have so many good players,” he said. “I am desperate for September. Because September we have Capital One Cup, we have Europa League, we have seven matches in September and they all play and then I am happy.”
The Europa League was supposed to be where Ibrahimovic and United’s other first-team players were afforded a break. They have a strong enough squad to brush aside the Zorya Luhansks, the Fenerbahces and the Feyenoords of this world aside, after all.
At least that was the accepted wisdom, and that was before the latter of that trio dealt them a humbling 1-0 defeat in their first group-stage outing. Having lost the Manchester derby just five days before, Mourinho made eight changes to his starting line-up for that game. The squad he boasted of so proudly as a fertile father would his many, many children were afforded an opportunity to impress; they let him down.
Mourinho’s relationship with Ibrahimovic is well-documented. He trusts him implicitly, more than any other player in the squad he once sought to praise. Does he trust this Manchester United side without his right-hand man?
Matt Stead