Ibra Vows To Create More Goals

Manchester United’s top scorer Zlatan Ibrahimovic has expressed a desire to create more goals for his team-mates as the Reds head towards the second half of the season.     

The number nine has enjoyed a prolific first half of his debut campaign at the club, netting for the 17th time in all competitions during the Boxing Day win over Sunderland at Old Trafford.
 
As he prepares for Saturday's Premier League game against Middlesbrough, Ibrahimovic is just two goals away from surpassing Lionel Messi’s 2016 tally of 51 and being crowned the leading scorer in the calendar year among Europe’s top leagues.

But the Swedish striker insists he isn’t motivated by personal records and is instead focused on helping the team achieve more success, by assisting as well as scoring.

He told MUTV: “When I scored [against Sunderland] it was 50 [goals in 2016] but that is not one of my objectives because if a player starts to focus only on scoring goals it means he’s focusing only on himself. Like I said, I’m not here to focus on myself because I’m here to help my team-mates win.

“The goals come in the second wave – the first wave is my team, the collective part that I want to win with them. If the collective does well, the individual will do well and I prefer to have it that way.

“If you know the way I play my game, I’m the one who scores or tries to help my team-mates score.”

Ibrahimovic certainly helped Henrikh Mkhitaryan find the net on Boxing Day, delivering a cross that required the Armenian to improvise and smash the ball home with a finish that has been described as both a backheel and a scorpion kick.

“That was perfect because I said to myself ‘if I put it a little behind him he can do the backheel’ - exactly like we have been training for these couple of weeks and it worked," said Zlatan.

"I was super happy, I was the one jumping higher than everybody else when we were celebrating! I was super happy, especially for Micki. I know how it feels to score a goal like that.

"I’m happy they [the officials] didn’t give it offside because a goal like that has to be [a] goal."

Ibrahimovic, who has set up three goals this season, added: “I haven’t had many assists so far and that is part of my game that I’ve been missing here in my six months at United.

"At my other clubs I’ve been scoring goals but I’ve also done a lot of assists. I'm happy to give an assist because for me it is just like you have scored yourself. It’s part of my game and I have wanted to be as complete as possible in my game since I was young and started to play football.

"I want to be good at everything, not in one thing, so the assists will come. Some have come already but even more will come."