Jose Mourinho has hailed Zlatan Ibrahimovic has “phenomenal” after he fired home his first goal for Manchester United.
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The 34-year-old fired in from 25 yards to cap United’s 3-1 win away to Bournemouth, following a first-half finish from Juan Mata and a header from Wayne Rooney.
United, without world record signing Paul Pogba who was suspended, were denied a clean sheet soon afterwards when defender Adam Smith beat David de Gea with a fierce shot from 12 metres.
Rooney added that he didn’t feel threatened by any of the new signings saying: “I’ve not had to prove anything to anyone”.
“I try to do my job and help my team-mates. He’s the profile of a player the Premier League has to be pleased to have”, Mourinho said. Forget that he is 34, the body and the mentality is not of 34.
Mourinho’s first league game in charge of United included a fine goal by 34-year-old Zlatan Ibrahimovic on his EPL debut.
“The second became easier”. The manager is helping bring this feeling of aggression and character that we need to win games which is very important.
Ibrahimovic, in contrast to the 89 million-pound Pogba, cost nothing and was able to maintain his reputation for scoring in a first game in a new league.
Mata, who was sold by Mourinho during their time at Chelsea, was substituted after coming on against Leicester in the Community Shield.
“The season has started in a really good way”, Mata wrote on his blog.
“I’m really happy with him, but I’m really happy with the whole team, even with the ones that came on later because they gave a contribution, and even with the ones on the bench. If I play the way I played today, I’ll score goals”.
Only Aston Villa conceded more goals than Bournemouth last season and Eddie Howe’s team were again exposed too easily by their opponents.
Having both scored, the two elderly statesmen of the United squad were interviewed by a Sky reporter following the game. These sorts of games were the ones where we conceded goals previous year so maybe when we go 2-0 down we need to be more defensive and stay in the game rather than chase it.
“The three points, the quality of our attacking football, the quality of our control, the quality of us defensively – we were very compact”.
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“One goal changes the picture as in the beginning of the second half they tried to put more pressure on us, which opened more spaces”.
