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Ibrahimovic and Pogba shine as United win again

Ibrahimovic, the mercurial Swedish striker, scored a pair of first-half goals to power Mourinho’s Red Devils to their third win in as many tries on the young season – a 2-0 victory over Southampton in front of a joyous Old Trafford crowd.

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“Luke [Shaw] and Antonio [Valencia] were offensive when they had to be and very good defensively”.

Ibrahimovic is now the penalty taker, taking over from Wayne Rooney.

“Everything is new. It’s like a big puzzle, we need to put the puzzle together”.

Early-season form can be deceptive – Angel Di Maria had a hugely encouraging start to life at United before fading badly – but for now, there are some very promising signs for Ibrahimovic and United in general. I didn’t know I would play 90 minutes!

Paul Pogba has admitted it was a “great moment to touch the pitch” at Old Trafford again after making his first appearance for Manchester United since returning to the club from Juventus.

He continued to be heavily involved as he made a number of good runs from midfield, going on 12 dribbles throughout the match, and could perhaps have scored when he headed over the bar following a nice cross from Mata, trying his luck a few more times in the remainder of the game as well as he went in search of his debut goal.

Zlatan insisted that United “are becoming better and better”, with “a good start”, under their belt.

“I came back home”.

“It’s a natural evolution of things and it’s impossible to be faster than what we are doing with the way we are playing football and the way that the team is defending because it’s a different way to defend – zonal is much more hard to defend than man to man”. My debut and we won so I am very happy for that. I hope to continue like this and get better and keep winning.

Mourinho’s pre-match call for United’s fans to create an intimidating atmosphere was not observed to the letter, but in the 36th minute the players generated some noise on their own. Fellaini was a clear example … it is changing completely.

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The Champions League runner-up came close to sealing a dream second debut in the final minutes of the game but Pogba couldn’t direct his shot on target after Henrikh Mkhitaryan played his team-mate in. “With me, you don’t leave for sure'”. He is playing well, with [Michael] Carrick, with Ander Herrera, with Paul. “The coach trusted me and I felt good”.

Manchester United's Zlatan Ibrahimovic scores their second goal from a penalty