Big players in a big team show what they’re made of
IT was Paul Pogba’s debut return for Manchester United following his £89- million world record transfer; it was Jose Mourinho’s first competitive match at home, but under the Friday night Premier League lights nothing was going to eclipse the star that is Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Nothing. With his two goals against Southampton (United won 20), four now in his opening three matches, the 34-yearold striker is quickly rising to the deified status he breezily said he would achieve when he joined the club.
A new force is emerging, or re-emerging, on the red side of Manchester and Mourinho will have allowed himself a sense of satisfaction that as well as Pogba played as he started and remained for the full 90 minutes — and his presence alone represented another step change in this revolution — others responded. But then Mourinho always understood Ibrahimovic would.
Big players revel with other big players in big teams and on big nights, and Ibrahimovic, Pogba, Mourinho and United knew this was an opportunity to lay down their challenge. A marker is now there for others to match.
It has been 20 years since a player tagged as the most expensive in the world has featured in the Premier League. Then it was Alan Shearer at Newcastle United and here it was Pogba. The immediate focus was, of course, on him but it was not just about him.
As the United team strode out, with Ibrahimovic the last to emerge, and as Mourinho made his way down the touchline, it felt bigger at Old Trafford than it has done in recent, confidence-lashed times.
The test, though, will be against superior opposition, but Mourinho also knows all about the big ‘Mo’ — as opposed to the big ‘Mou’ — in momentum and United’s is beginning to gather. — ©