José Mourinho has revealed that Wayne Rooney and Paul Pogba mutually agreed to let Zlatan Ibrahimovic take penalties.
The Swedish striker scored one of his two goals against Southampton from the penalty spot. It was a surprise to see the former Barcelona and Paris St Germain striker step up to take the penalty while Wayne Rooney was on the pitch. Since the exit of Cristiano Ronaldo, Rooney has been the first choice penalty taker. This has led to rumours that Ibrahimovic had been exerting a lot of dominance in the dressing room.
Dismissing those rumours, Mourinho says that the decision to let Ibrahimovic take the penalty was taken after consultation with Rooney and Paul Pogba. The new world record signing is also capable of scoring from the penalty spot with great accuracy. Rooney would also have edged closer to Bobby Charlton’s record had he scored from the penalty spot. The 31-year-old now has 246 goals and is only three goals shy of matching the tally of club legend Bobby Charlton. Mourinho, though, says that the record will eventually be broken since Rooney has the quality and time with him.
Ibrahimovic, though, has been making a lot of headlines after scoring three goals in the opening two games for United. The club have 100% success underMourinho.“I designated three – Paul, Wayne and Zlatan – but sometimes I like the players to have the feeling ‘this is for me’.Wayne and Paul told themselves ‘Zlatan, when a penalty comes you are the first. If you don’t want to take it for some reason we are here, but you are the man. Between them they made that decision.I have so many good players.I need September because all these guys need to play, they deserve to play,” said Mourinho after the game.