What to Expect from Manchester United's Zlatan Ibrahimovic-Led Attack

The question being addressed here is what to expect from a Zlatan Ibrahimovic-focused attack at Manchester United, but the most exciting thing about the Swede is his gift for the unexpected.

Consider the goal he scored for Paris Saint-Germain against SC Bastia in the 2013/14 season. Lucas Moura tore down the right flank and drilled a cross into the left-hand side of the box, level with the penalty spot. Hervin Ongenda flicked the ball into the air and toward the edge of the six-yard area, where Ibrahimovic lurked.

Tightly marked by two defenders, the Sweden international looked as if he would have to knock the ball down for one of his team-mates. It would not have been a surprise to see the defenders clear the danger.

What happened next was a moment of pure football magic. What happened next was pure Ibrahimovic.

Instead of trying to control the ball on his chest, or head it down toward a team-mate, the striker flicked out his right boot and volleyed a waist-high backheel into the net. It was, quite simply, sublime.

That moment of fantasy was one of the many Ibrahimovic has called into being throughout his career.

For Sweden against Italy at Euro 2004, he scored another waist-high backheel. Against England in 2012, he bicycle-kicked Joe Hart's headed clearance into the back of the net from 30 yards—the strike that won 2013's goal of the year due to missing the voting deadline for 2012.

There are goals at Ibrahimovic's disposal that simply do not feature in the arsenal of almost any other forward, but his game is not just about the spectacular moments.

At PSG last season, he was the spearhead of one of Europe's most functional attacking units. He scored 38 goals in 31 league appearances, five in 10 in the UEFA Champions League.

Add to that 13 league assists and three in Europe, and his direct contribution to goals last term in those competitions stands at 59.

As well as the obvious questions about a 34-year old arriving in the Premier League for the first time, one of the key questions around his move to Old Trafford is whether his team-mates will be able to form into the kind of support system he had in Paris.

Given the fact that United's position in the Premier League is more competitive than PSG's in Ligue 1 and that he will be part of a new attack, it seems unlikely he will hit those numbers again.

However, considering United scored just 80 goals in all competitions as a club last season, there will surely be a significant upgrade brought about by Ibrahimovic's arrival.

If the veteran hits half of last season's output, he will vastly outweigh any player's individual contributions to United in Louis van Gaal's final campaign.

As Adam Bate noted for Sky Sports:

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Signs of decline are not obvious. Ibrahimovic has just produced the best goalscoring season of his career, netting 50 times in 51 appearances for Paris Saint-Germain—some 15 goals more than his next best effort. It's the second best tally of any striker in a major European league.

While this was a stand-out season, his record is otherwise a model of consistency. Ibrahimovic has passed the 30-goal mark in all competitions in each of his last five seasons and scored more than 20 goals for nine seasons in a row at four different clubs.

Some will point to the perceived weakness of the French league and it's true that Ibrahimovic has twice failed to find the net against PSG's closest rivals, Monaco and Lyon, in the past 12 months. But his Champions League return has been impressive enough.

He was the club's top scorer and chief assist provider in the competition, finding the net in three of his four matches against English opposition - including home and away against Chelsea in their last-16 tie. He has repeatedly proven his quality at a high level.

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So there will likely be more goals for United this campaign, but how will manager Jose Mourinho look to get the best out of his new charge?

There are a few options available. The first is presumably going to be deployed when United take on Bournemouth in the season opener on 14 August. It seems reasonable to assume they will line up with Anthony Martial on the left wing, Henrikh Mkhitaryan on the right and Wayne Rooney behind their new frontman.

Unless Rooney hugely outperforms his recent campaigns, there will likely have to be some rearrangement to that over the season. However, that is a future concern. Leaving the club captain out of his first game in charge would seem an unlikely step for Mourinho.

There will thus be an onus on Martial and Mkhitaryan to stretch play in this setup. The two wide attackers will likely have to spearhead any counter-attacks, given that neither Rooney nor Ibrahimovic will offer much in the way of pace.

Fortunately, they both do a neat line in killer balls which the wingers can then latch on to, and both those wide men represent a significant goal threat.

In that system, it is against deep-lying defences—the kind United struggled against so often last season—that Ibrahimovic can truly flourish. His speed may have been slightly diminished by age, but his physical power and his inventiveness has not.

The Bastia goal showed just how dangerous he can be even when tightly marked. And his sheer presence—in terms of his charisma and his size—will draw the attentions of defenders, something that should open up space for the other three attackers, all of whom have the tools to exploit it.

There are a variety of personnel tweaks that could change the timbre of any 4-2-3-1 Mourinho uses. Juan Mata could play in Rooney's place, for example. A more dramatic change could be for Mkhitaryan to play behind the striker with Marcus Rashford on the right wing.

He would need a lot of defensive cover, but Rashford's technically brilliant link-up play would be a superb match for Ibrahimovic's. The thought of them exchanging backheels on the edge of the box to carve open space is an appealing one.

Another option—which will be even more viable should United complete the signing of Paul Pogba, as they are rumoured to be on the verge of doing, per La Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t Joe Short of the Daily Express)—is for United to play some variant of a 4-4-2, with Rashford and Ibrahimovic as a front two.

The formation might be something of a throwback, but both Atletico Madrid and Leicester City had a good deal of joy with it last season. Having Rashford to run off Ibrahimovic, with Mkhitaryan and Martial providing width, would make for an intriguing experiment.

Finally, an out-and-out 4-3-3 with Mkihitaryan playing as one of the midfield three alongside, say, Pogba and Michael Carrick, with Ibrahimovic, Martial and Rashford sharing attacking duties seems a real possibility. There would be enormous attacking potency to that combination, though it would obviously sideline Mata and Rooney.

Jean Catuffe/Getty Images

But that might be a necessary price to pay. After all, Ibrahimovic will be an enormous force in United's dressing room and on the pitch.

United will not win the league just because they have signed the Swede, but they have instantly become a different proposition thanks to his arrival. Fans should expect the unexpected, they should expect the spectacular. They should also expect a little bit of bedding-in time for their new-look attack.

In the end, though, they should expect goals. Scoring goals is what Ibrahimovic does. It is what he has done for a long time, and there seems no reason he would stop now.