Zlatan comes to Manchester

In Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Manchester United haven’t just acquired “one of the modernday great strikers”, said Alan Smith in The Guardian. They have signed one of the “all-time great personalities”. This is a player who announced his departure from his previous club, Paris Saint-germain, with characteristic swagger – “I came like a king,” he said. “I left like a legend” – a player who refers to himself in the third person and compares himself to God; who says, “I can’t help but laugh at how perfect I am”. He’s not far off: the Swede is a “rare and sublime talent”, who has won 12 league titles in the past 13 seasons. There are footballers who have had a type of skill named after them, but Ibrahimovic may be the only one with his own verb: in Swedish, Zlatanera means “to dominate”.

For all Ibrahimovic’s achievements, however, this signing is still a gamble, said Sam Wallace in The Daily Telegraph. At 34, he is clearly past his best, as we saw in his poor performances at Euro 2016; he may have scored 50 goals last season, but French football is notoriously easy. United manager José Mourinho, who struck up a close relationship with Ibrahimovic at Inter Milan, expects the striker to be a leader in “a squad with very few of them”. But in their heyday, the Red Devils signed players in the prime of their careers – not “when they became available” on free transfers. This deal shows “how far a once mighty club have fallen”.