Zlatan Ibrahimovic will be reunited with new Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho
As the realm is still in recovery mode from a momentous Brexit hangover, a new dawn is born at Old Trafford and United fans will be seeing more new faces other than boss Jose Mourinho next season. Manchester United will be looking to the Portuguese to take the club back to the pinnacle of European club football whilst also challenging on a domestic front. In order to do that, Mourinho knows he will have to bring in new faces that are more in keeping with his style of play. Today, The Guardian have linked both free agent Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Borussia Dortmund’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan with moves to Old Trafford to join new signing Eric Bailly, who recently joined the club from Villarreal, in what will be a very new looking Manchester United side next term.
Ibrahimovic has been linked heavily with a move to United and a reunion with Mourinho – who he played under at Internazionale in 2008/09, with the Portuguese claiming, at the time, that the Swede was even better than Cristiano Ronaldo. Ibrahimovic, who recently retired from International football having been eliminated with Sweden at Euro 2016, has won league titles all across Europe and leaves PSG as the club’s top goalscorer of all time having only arrived in Paris in 2012. Many United fans will welcome a player with such a superstar status, whilst others will be concerned that this will limit the progress of youngster Marcus Rashford – who has been a revelation since his two goals on his debut back in February against FC Midtjylland.
With Anthony Martial on one wing and Wayne Rooney dropping back into midfield, Ibrahimovic will have no shortage of pace in and around him and with the creative guile of the captain from deep. It is being reported that United are preparing to offer the Swede a contract of £220,000 a week to join the club and he is expected to fly to Manchester on July 4th to finalise the deal. A deal for Ibrahimovic will go against the transfer policy adopted by Sir Alex Ferguson whilst at the helm. The former PSG man will be 35 in October and his best days are indeed behind him, however – with United not playing Champions League football next season, Ibrahimovic is seen as the man who can push the club forward next season and accelerate the challenge of toppling the likes of Leicester, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham and Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City.
Interest in Dortmund’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan has increased in recent weeks and it appears as if the Armenian captain could well be at Old Trafford next season. Mkhitaryan scored 19 goals for the German club, who finished second in the Bundesliga last term – ten point adrift of Bayern Munich. The midfielder joined Dortmund in 2013 from Shakhtar Donetsk and is in his last year of his contract. Dortmund have offered the player a payrise to remain at the Westfalenstadion, but the club (Dortmund chief executive, Hans-Joachim Watzke, admitted earlier this month that the club had failed to convince the player to sign a contract extension) now accepts the player could now leave for the Premier League in the next few weeks. Having lost Mats Hummels to Bayern Munich, Thomas Tuchel will want to ensure that he gets the best possible deal for his goalscoring midfielder.
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