Why Romelu Lukaku is better than Zlatan Ibrahimovic

It’s never fun to play United, and it won’t change this season. Mourinho insists he has signed a player more mature than the one he let go four years ago.

How will Manchester City handle United this season?

Mourinho guided them to three successive semi-finals and clearly feels he didn’t get the credit for laying the platform for Carlo Ancelotti (2014) and then Zinedine Zidane to turn them into winners (2016 and 2017).

He is sure to use that double success as part of his mind games in the media whenever he comes up against those sides this season. Nevertheless, if Lukaku goes out of form, I don’t see Pogba, Mkhitaryan, or Rashford scoring an enormous amount of goals to make up for his absence. They will be a very different beast to the United of Ferguson with his flying wingers and all-out attack. “He is at his best when he can terrorise defenders, running at them on to goal”. “And having watched the last few weeks unfold, I think the club are better prepared for the standard of the Premier League as during any time in last few seasons since Sir Alex left”.

The key to Lukaku’s £75 million move to Manchester United is timing.

There have been flashes of potential greatness by Romelu Lukaku in pre-season.

Following the high-profile departures of Wayne Rooney and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Henrikh Mkhitaryan has assumed a senior role in Manchester United, The National says in an article published on August 5.

Matic featured in over 25 league games for Chelsea last season and was always preferred ahead of Fabregas in the Chelsea line up. Neymar and Messi were already providing plenty of goals but the addition of Suarez made them even more unsafe.

“The question mark and frustration with Lukaku is does he do it in the big games?” he said. There was a feeling at Goodison that he gorged on weaker opposition and didn’t produce in Everton’s biggest matches.

However, that would not be an issue for United.

Indeed, the former’s deal is already done.

“Players without certain ability who go for that amount of money are expensive, so I think Neymar going for 200 million [pounds] is not expensive due to the quality that he possesses”. Perhaps that release will allow Pogba to shine this season.

With Neymar’s move to Paris Saint-Germain completed on Thursday, Barcelona’s war chest has been boosted to the tune of around £198m and Chelsea star Eden Hazard – who will miss this weekend’s match at Wembley with an ankle injury – has been linked.

Across Manchester, City and Pep Guardiola present a huge obstacle. The 22-year-old managed to score only once in 28 games, which was in the EFL Cup against Shrewsbury.