Sunday’s away performance at the Vitality Stadium was certainly an encouraging one for the start of the Mourinho era, particularly after derby rival and title favorite Manchester City scraped a 2-1 win over Sunderland on Saturday.
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Mourinho still has world-record signing Paul Pogba to add to his line-up after the France worldwide served a one-match suspension holding over from his time with Juventus this weekend. He has also scored on his competitive debut for Juventus, Inter Milan, Barcelona, Paris St-Germain and now United.
“Look, the first thing I can tell you is that, at his table for breakfast and for meals, he is surrounded by the young ones, the kids”.
“We knew the first 15 to 20 minutes would be them playing at a high intensity, pressing a lot in the middle of the pitch”. You have to forget his passport, you have to forget he is 34 years old because the body and the mentality is not that of a 34-year-old guy.
“I don’t think they need a statement”. Mourinho said the striker will be “phenomenal” for United and the Premier League as a whole, and doesn’t understand how Ibrahimovic wasn’t able to break the dominance of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi in voting for FIFA’s world player of the year.
Ibrahimovic’s 64th minute drilled long range effort followed a 40th minute opener from Juan Mata and a 59th minute header from Wayne Rooney.
Smith scored a good goal but it was just a consolation for the home team. It’s three points against a very hard opponent and I don’t think there’s any doubt we deserved to win.
There was also a touch of luck to United’s second goal, as the visitors kept probing Bournemouth’s defense after the re-start. “We weren’t surprised and then we started playing”, he said.
“I found it was a good game, not easy, the first half was hard”, Ibrahimovic said.
Liverpool’s fluent passing and clinical finishing in the second half was simply too hot for Arsenal to handle. “Zlatan had one chance and got one goal which is good for us”.
“In August it can be frustrating for players not in the team, because it’s one game a week”.
Soon after, United won a free-kick outside the area, which Ibrahimovic took, forcing an outstanding save from Bournemouth goalkeeper Artur Boruc, but he was not to be denied on his Premier League debut.
Three years on from his big-money arrival at the Theatre of Dreams and the Belgian is yet to prove his worth and instead continues to frustrate.
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“We have time and we will see what happens and injuries can always happen, unfortunately. I’m happy with the team”. “It was hard work but a deserved win in the end. Our idea is that he will be a very important player for us”, he added. But we’ll fight until it’s possible. Everybody knows we’re going to fight for the title.
