Manchester United manager, Jose Mourinho, has explained that he started Zlatan Ibrahimovic from the bench against Chelsea on Sunday, because the 35-year-old is tired.
Ibrahimovic is United’s leading scorer this season with 28 goals in all competitions.
However, Mourinho chose to go with Marcus Rashford, Jesses Ligaard and Ashley as his attacking trio at Old Trafford.
When asked about Ibrahimovic’s omission, he said: “He’s tired, very tired. I’ll try to protect him but let’s see the result. He’s on the bench and ready to help.”
The Swede had also admitted that he was not sharp in their Europa League clash at Anderlecht and agreed with the manager’s criticism
United failed to convert a number of chances, after they took the lead through Henrikh Mkhitaryan. They eventually went on to concede a late equalizer when Leander Dendocker headed past Sergio Romero.
An angry Mourinho faced the media afterwards and ripped into his attackers.
“I think he is right in this matter because I was not feeling good in the sense of I was feeling tired,” Ibrahimovic admitted.
“But it is not an excuse because I still have to do well, I still have to do much more and much better than I did. I speak for myself and [Anderlecht] was not a good performance.
“We have one month to go, it is many games we play. I have been playing almost all the games.
“But we are still grinding, we are still pushing because we have the Europa League and the end of the Premier League. We fight for it.”
Bình luận