Manchester United getting taste of life with Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Manchester United have all but sealed up Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but should they be worried by his frustrating run for Sweden at Euro 2016?

The Euros are taking center stage as everyone who is anyone (and anyone who wants a better team) is trying to hog the spotlight to up their own ante and their own price tag. Zlatan Ibrahimovic may be immune to pressure, but he isn’t immune to looking underwhelming for Sweden. It has been happening for years now as the focus is always on him.

Sweden just lacks the resources to do much away from the big man’s input and it can lead to matches like we saw against Italy, where he just looks wholly frustrated.

It is a problem that should not be lost to Manchester United. The Red Devils will obviously have quality to staff around Ibra, but everyone ages, even Ibra. Despite what he says about getting better with age, Zlatan isn’t going to keep up his unstoppable form forever. Manchester United have to learn this sooner or later.

That being said, he picked a rough time to (reportedly) come to England and using the match against Italy as a template, we can get a good indication of what may pervade his stay at Manchester United.

Zlatan is a striker who’s primary success comes from his strength and his ability to wield himself in the box. He has plenty of other abilities around that, but primarily, he is a strength and size striker. That works well in France and in Spain and Italy where defensive quality fluctuates by the week. But in the Premier League, Zlatan is going to be up against a bunch of defenses that treat him like Italy did on Friday.

It was pure suffocation and Premier League defenses, from top to bottom, are capable of the same. They are staffed with the best defenders in the world and expecting a 34 year old – even a 34 year old Zlatan – to keep up every single weekend is asking a lot.

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But Zlatan won’t turn down a challenge. That is part of the worry. Zlatan will not be able to do the job alone. No one can do the job on their own in England. It’s too competitive and too physical and hopefully Mourinho knows that as he builds his new Manchester United.

I will draw on a similar scenario. Olivier Giroud faces the same thing over at Arsenal. Now granted, Zlatan is superior to Giroud, but my point is that Giroud is the same type. He uses his strength as a primary weapon. And it doesn’t always work. In fact, it rarely ever works consistently. Giroud has streaks where it’s all clicking and streaks where it falls apart. It is physically taxing and exhausting and for a team like Arsenal that holds the ball close to the opposing box, it is a continuous job.

Zlatan is going to be facing similar. He is going to be asked to hold that space for the full 90 for Manchester United. It will not be as easy as Zlatan keeps playing it off as being.

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Manchester United’s primary problem last year was scoring goals and Zlatan will work wonders in that regard. But the two parties have to be keenly aware that those goals will not come easy. Not even with Jose Mourinho at the helm. Bullying FC Metz and bullying Stoke City are two different things. Manchester Untied cannot expect to run everything through Zlatan like Sweden do and, hopefully, they don’t. Otherwise they could end up looking like Sweden looked against Italy.

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