Zlat’s the way to do it – but will it backfire?

MANCHESTER UNITED have just signed a striker who scored 28 goals last season, has won the League at every club he’s been at, and has racked up 482 career goals and has 116 international caps.

And he cost nothing. That’s a no-brainer, isn’t it? Except that the player in question is Zlatan Ibrahimovic. That means what looks like the most-obvious piece of summer transfer business may not turn out to be as win-win as it looks.

There’s a clue in the Swede’s words when United announced his new one-year contract: “I am back to finish what I started”. No false modesty there. There was another in the image that United circulated to publicise the news – Zlatan dressed in God-like white robes, arm-wrestling the Devil.

The theme was very clear. Ibrahimovic is not a bitpart player. For Zlatan, it’s all about him.

Of course, his personal agenda often coincides with that of his club. It did when he played for Jose Mourinho at Inter Milan, though not when he was under Pep Guardiola at Barcelona.

It worked very well at United last season, in terms of his contribution to them winning two trophies.

But while Ibrahimovic scored 28 times, several United players had to make sacrifices because he was very obviously the main man.

Wayne Rooney missed games because there wasn’t enough pace in the side when the two played together, Marcus Rashford was shunted to the left wing and Anthony Martial barely got a look-in.

Mourinho spent a fortune on Romelu Lukaku and United started the season in ruthless fashion, with Rashford and Martial playing significant roles.

Ibrahimovic is not likely to be fit until Christmas and, by then, it’s possible that United will have established an effective way of playing without him.

Mourinho says that he anticipates the striker playing a role in the second half of the season when fixtures pile up. And you can certainly see the appeal of being able to bring Zlatan off the bench to turn a draw into a win.

The question is whether that will be enough for someone who has always been the player around whom everything revolves.

If Ibrahimovic is happy playing cameo roles, this could be the signing of the season.

But if he still sees himself as the team’s mostimportant player, Mourinho could have shot himself in the foot.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is back at Old Trafford.

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