Mourinho hails ´humble´ Ibrahimovic ahead of United debut

Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s arrival has provided the whole Manchester United squad with a huge pre-season boost, according to manager Jose Mourinho.

The Swede is set to make his debut in Saturday’s friendly against Galatasaray in Gothenburg, with Mourinho lauding the 34-year-old’s ability to inspire those around him.

“With Zlatan you may see someone with a big ego, big self-esteem, but it is in a positive way,” the Portuguese told MUTV. “When he is with the group, he is humble and friendly to everyone – integration is good.

“Zlatan is a fantastic player and, immediately in training, we could feel what I call ‘functional empathy’ – people looking to him, him looking to connect with other players.

“He is an amazing link player, an amazing player. He could be anything on the pitch, not just a goalscorer.”

Goalkeeper David de Gea has also been impressed by Ibrahimovic, who enjoyed the most prolific spell of his career during four trophy-laden years at Paris Saint-Germain before moving to Old Trafford this month.

“It’s really good to have Zlatan already here training with the team,” said the Spaniard. “You can see he’s a top player, he’s massive, very big, with a lot of quality and of course he is a top striker.

“I think he will settle in very quickly. You can look and it seems like he has been playing here many years already and the same with the other guys we’ve signed [Eric Bailly, Henrikh Mkhitaryan].

“They are playing really well, their training has been top and I think that we have signed really good players.”