How good was Zlatan?

[El Jefe]

As far as ability, he could do things other top 10 strikers in his generation couldn't dream of but ultimately his biggest flaw was the team had to be about Zlatan.

Eto'o, Suarez, Henry, Villa, Rooney at points in their career had to curb their ego for the greater good of the team but they won trophies in the process. Zlatan's ego would never be able to accept this and this explains why he never truly flourished at potential CL winning clubs. His weakest spells came at Juventus and Barcelona and while he was still good at these clubs, these teams were the best sides he played in and the ones that didn't revolve around him.

 

[Revan]

I agree with many others that Zlatan is marketed very well and us consider him a cut below the very best. If I'm facing a team or putting one together, there's no chance he's Suarez' equal either way whether the CF I want or the one I want to avoid.

But even aside from Suarez I'd pick many before Ibra one being the player he was swapped him - Eto'o.

As I said before it's funny how differently he and Rooney are viewed

In what aspect? Ibra was the much better player, to be fair. Has something like 200 more goals in his career, more trophies (though not UCL), and in general was the more dominant player (even a way past it Ibra came as a free transfer at United and immediately became the main player despite Rooney being captain and Pogba being the most expensive player of all time, and dominated the league until he got injured). If not for that awful injury, he probably would have broken Rooney's goal record (for a single season) despite being 35 years old, in a new league and playing for Mourinho.

Eto'o was not as good as Ibra. More suited to Barca's style for sure, and more of a team player (he essentially played the Ji-Sung Park role for Mourinho when they won UCL), but nowhere as good. After all, Ibra cost 59m pounds and Eto'o, both times rated him 60m pounds more than Eto'o.

I wouldn't have taken Ibra for Barca (or for any team that has a better player than him essentially Messi/Ronaldo) but I don't think you would have found many managers who would have picked Eto'o or Rooney or Villa ahead of him. If you already have a great team, then a team player like them makes sense instead. If you're building a team and cannot pick the big two, I think that most would have chosen Ibra ahead of them.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

In what aspect? Ibra was the much better player, to be fair. Has something like 200 more goals in his career, more trophies (though not UCL), and in general was the more dominant player (even a way past it Ibra came as a free transfer at United and immediately became the main player despite Rooney being captain and Pogba being the most expensive player of all time, and dominated the league until he got injured). If not for that awful injury, he probably would have broken Rooney's goal record (for a single season) despite being 35 years old, in a new league and playing for Mourinho.

Well I think they're comparable footballers but Ibrahimovic is celebrated while Rooney really isn't, for some reason. Come on now, other than old Rooney nearly every version of him would be our best player in that team too. He was a much better we footballer than Pogba. Zlatan is one of those players who relies on stats. Rooney wasn't. Some of his most brilliant work came outside of it.

I don't think Zlatan was the much better player. And I don't consider him among the best strikers I've seen. Not surprising Barcelona the truly big elite league stint he had (other than United) didn't work out for him and he paled in comparison to Eto'o.

Ibrahimovic was a superb footballer. Just not as good as people make him out to be.

 

[Revan]

Well I think they're comparable footballers but Ibrahimovic is celebrated while Rooney really isn't, for some reason. Come on now, other than old Rooney nearly every version of him would be our best player in that team too. He was a much better we footballer than Pogba. Zlatan is one of those players who relies on stats. Rooney wasn't. Some of his most brilliant work came outside of it.

I don't think Zlatan was the much better player. And I don't consider him among the best strikers I've seen. Not surprising Barcelona the truly big elite league stint he had (other than United) didn't work out for him and he paled in comparison to Eto'o.

Ibrahimovic was a superb footballer. Just not as good as people make him out to be.

That is missing the context though. Villa was arguably the best striker in the world, and at Barca he was a peripherical player, not even in their top 3 players. He was ok with that role, Ibra wasn't (Eto'o was ok too).

It is very likely that Ronaldo would have failed in Barca too. Different system and Pep (rightly) decided to build the team towards Ronaldo. Same for Messi, if you sent him at Zidane's Madrid which was built over Ronaldo, Messi would not have looked that great.

Ibra had the dominance, charisma, and leadership that Rooney never had. Sent him at any team that didn't have Ronaldo or Messi, and the moment he would have entered the room, players would have accepted him as their leader.

 

[el3mel]

In what aspect? Ibra was the much better player, to be fair. Has something like 200 more goals in his career, more trophies (though not UCL), and in general was the more dominant player (even a way past it Ibra came as a free transfer at United and immediately became the main player despite Rooney being captain and Pogba being the most expensive player of all time, and dominated the league until he got injured). If not for that awful injury, he probably would have broken Rooney's goal record (for a single season) despite being 35 years old, in a new league and playing for Mourinho.

Eto'o was not as good as Ibra. More suited to Barca's style for sure, and more of a team player (he essentially played the Ji-Sung Park role for Mourinho when they won UCL), but nowhere as good. After all, Ibra cost 59m pounds and Eto'o, both times rated him 60m pounds more than Eto'o.

I wouldn't have taken Ibra for Barca (or for any team that has a better player than him essentially Messi/Ronaldo) but I don't think you would have found many managers who would have picked Eto'o or Rooney or Villa ahead of him. If you already have a great team, then a team player like them makes sense instead. If you're building a team and cannot pick the big two, I think that most would have chosen Ibra ahead of them.

Actually imo Zlatan seems to be the perfect striker type for Mourinho. We played our best football under Mourinho with Zlatan up top because he suited his ideas nicely. While we finished higher in the league under Lukaku, we played worse football with him than we did with Zlatan. Mourinho usually builds his attack on strong, physical striker up front who controls the ball and sets up the play for upcoming wingers and 10s to get in position and score. Zlatan did this perfectly. He was dropping deep to even midfield some times to get the ball and help in building up the play and creating chances, and thanks to this we created loads and loads of chances every game. He was like a playmaker some times. Unfortunately our finishing was absolutely rubbish in this season and to be fair, Zlatan also passed through a period in which he struggled to score even the easiest chances, before picking up his scoring shoes by the end of first half of the season. Overall our attacking system in 2016/2017 was absolutely fluid and that's thanks to Zlatan suiting Mourinho's idea of striker imo.

The next season with Lukaku up front the overall creativity and fluidity of the team took a big hit. While Lukaku is strong, physical and scores, he's very poor unfortunately in building up the play, dropping deep and helping in creating chances. Th end result was we looked like hoofing and depending on individual quality upfront more than having a fluid, attacking system.

Even though I don't have regrets with signing Lukaku and at the end he did have a very decent first season, it's no doubt that Zlatan was just better for our attacking playstyle and we didn't manage to replace his level of creativity and ability to build from deep positions unfortunately until the current season under Ole when we got Bruno in 10 and with Martial up top.

 

[Revan]

Actually imo Zlatan seems to be the perfect striker type for Mourinho. We played our best football under Mourinho with Zlatan up top because he suited his ideas nicely. While we finished higher in the league under Lukaku, we played worse football with him than we did with Zlatan. Mourinho usually builds his attack on strong, physical striker up front who controls the ball and sets up the play for upcoming wingers and 10s to get in position and score. Zlatan did this perfectly. He was dropping deep to even midfield some times to get the ball and help in building up the play and creating chances, and thanks to this we created loads and loads of chances every game. He was like a playmaker some times. Unfortunately our finishing was absolutely rubbish in this season and to be fair, Zlatan also passed through a period in which he struggled to score even the easiest chances, before picking up his scoring shoes by the end of first half of the season. Overall our attacking system in 2016/2017 was absolutely fluid and that's thanks to Zlatan suiting Mourinho's idea of striker imo.

The next season with Lukaku up front the overall creativity and fluidity of the team took a big hit. While Lukaku is strong, physical and score, he's very poor unfortunately in building up the play, dropping deep and helping in creating chances. Th end result was we looked like hoofing and depending on individual quality upfront more than having a fluid, attacking system.

Even though I don't have regrets with signing Lukaku and at the end he did have a very decent first season, it's no doubt that Zlatan was just better for our attacking playstyle and we didn't manage to replace his level of creativity and ability to build from deep positions unfortunately until the current season under Ole when we got Bruno in 10 and with Martial up top.

Oh, he was definitely very suited. What I meant is that Mourinho is a defensive manager, we scored only 54 goals in the league that season (Zlatan score 17 which was roughly 1/3 of them).

Put Zlatan (even a past it Zlatan) for a Fergie team in Berba's position, and he'll easily reach 35 goals per season (and a peak Zlatan would have managed to score 40 or so).

 

[el3mel]

Oh, he was definitely very suited. What I meant is that Mourinho is a defensive manager, we scored only 54 goals in the league that season (Zlatan score 17 which was roughly 1/3 of them).

Put Zlatan (even a past it Zlatan) for a Fergie team in Berba's position, and he'll easily reach 35 goals per season (and a peak Zlatan would have managed to score 40 or so).

Yeah I'll agree with Fergie part. I would have really liked to get a younger Zlatan in our prime under Fergie, at least post Ronaldo. I think he would have worked pretty well with Rooney and would have covered Ronaldo's absence. It's shame he wasted some of his best years with PSG imo. 4 seasons with them was a little bit of a stretch.

 

[Andersons Dietician]

Even though I don't have regrets with signing Lukaku and at the end he did have a very decent first season, it's no doubt that Zlatan was just better for our attacking playstyle and we didn't manage to replace his level of creativity and ability to build from deep positions unfortunately until the current season under Ole when we got Bruno in 10 and with Martial up top.

I don’t agree with this, if anything we played some of the worst football I’ve seen at OT in recent memory with Zlatan. All we did was get it out to Valencia and he pinged in a long diagonal ball for Fellaini and Zlatan to fight for.

There were moments of brilliance from Zlatan like there was one volly against City I think and everything about it is technically perfect. I do think people look at his time here through some Zlatan tinted glasses. He stifled our play was like a lamppost at times would be on the periphery of games and be non existent for 89 minutes but back 2 goals whilst for the other 89 minutes the team struggled. My favourite Zlatan memory was when he was being sick on the side of the pitch becuase there was one game where he actually ran the channels and put in a shift.

Generally he scored goals but didn’t particularly play well and any notion he was better than Eto’o in his pomp needs squashed now. Eto’o scored goals that even Zlatan could only dream of.

 

[fps]

The thing he lacked was pace. A lot of these comments are very harsh on him. He had absolutely everything else, bar the pace/mobility to pull defenders around and bring others into the game.

He remodelled his game around his strength though and as someone here said he was very much the traditional 9 in many ways, powerful and would finish any chances that could be created by a combo of the players around him and his absolutely lethal movement, positioning, technique, improvisation, and knowledge of where a defender didn’t want him to be while still being available to be found by his teammates.

 

[jem]

Nothing great in my opinion. Prior to united I saw only highlights and games against united where he seemed ok. When he came to United, i was more frustrated to see the amount of chances he missed and how slow he was.

Based on the small screen time I have seen of him, I would want rvn, Henry, shearer ahead of him even in his peak years.

But how can you refer to his peak years when you just admitted that you only really watched him closely at United, which was clearly after his peak years?

 

[Clermontois]

As far as ability, he could do things other top 10 strikers in his generation couldn't dream of but ultimately his biggest flaw was the team had to be about Zlatan.

Like what? Hit the ball hard and straight on freekicks? Because Mario Balotelli can hit it harder and from further than him but I would not say he was better than Zlatan.

In what aspect? Ibra was the much better player, to be fair. Has something like 200 more goals in his career, more trophies (though not UCL), and in general was the more dominant player (even a way past it Ibra came as a free transfer at United and immediately became the main player despite Rooney being captain and Pogba being the most expensive player of all time, and dominated the league until he got injured). If not for that awful injury, he probably would have broken Rooney's goal record (for a single season) despite being 35 years old, in a new league and playing for Mourinho.

Eto'o was not as good as Ibra. More suited to Barca's style for sure, and more of a team player (he essentially played the Ji-Sung Park role for Mourinho when they won UCL), but nowhere as good. After all, Ibra cost 59m pounds and Eto'o, both times rated him 60m pounds more than Eto'o.

Not the case, he was the main striker and that was because Mourinho made it so, took away Martial's number for him and made sure Paul was looking for his runs at all times. He was no better for our play than anyone. Sometimes he was detrimental to it, I even saw one chance where Paul sent a throughball that either Zlatan or Marcus Rashford could have got and the former absolutely shrugged the younger player out of the way then missed, main player, no way.

You are sorely mistaken and how anyone who watched both players play could say that is surprising.

Generally he scored goals but didn’t particularly play well and any notion he was better than Eto’o in his pomp needs squashed now. Eto’o scored goals that even Zlatan could only dream of.

Up in lights. Was just about to post the same.

 

[Kamprad]

As far as ability, he could do things other top 10 strikers in his generation couldn't dream of but ultimately his biggest flaw was the team had to be about Zlatan.

Eto'o, Suarez, Henry, Villa, Rooney at points in their career had to curb their ego for the greater good of the team but they won trophies in the process. Zlatan's ego would never be able to accept this and this explains why he never truly flourished at potential CL winning clubs. His weakest spells came at Juventus and Barcelona and while he was still good at these clubs, these teams were the best sides he played in and the ones that didn't revolve around him.

Good post. Totally agree.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

That is missing the context though. Villa was arguably the best striker in the world, and at Barca he was a peripherical player, not even in their top 3 players. He was ok with that role, Ibra wasn't (Eto'o was ok too).

It is very likely that Ronaldo would have failed in Barca too. Different system and Pep (rightly) decided to build the team towards Ronaldo. Same for Messi, if you sent him at Zidane's Madrid which was built over Ronaldo, Messi would not have looked that great.

Ibra had the dominance, charisma, and leadership that Rooney never had. Sent him at any team that didn't have Ronaldo or Messi, and the moment he would have entered the room, players would have accepted him as their leader.

I didn't mention Villa. I did mention Eto'o who was brilliant for Barcelona unlike Ibra who they couldn't wait to get rid of.

And fake leadership and charisma is all part of the image and less relevant than people make it out to be. Scholes, Messi, Xavi etc were revered because of their football. They didn't need to give badass interviews like Ibrahimovic or long team speeches like Pogba to garner everyone's attention. Their class did it for them. Rooney was as a phenomenal footballer and I'm sure he was highly regarded and inspirational during his time at United.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

As far as ability, he could do things other top 10 strikers in his generation couldn't dream of but ultimately his biggest flaw was the team had to be about Zlatan.

Eto'o, Suarez, Henry, Villa, Rooney at points in their career had to curb their ego for the greater good of the team but they won trophies in the process. Zlatan's ego would never be able to accept this and this explains why he never truly flourished at potential CL winning clubs. His weakest spells came at Juventus and Barcelona and while he was still good at these clubs, these teams were the best sides he played in and the ones that didn't revolve around him.

Think there is truth in this.

 

[Witchking]

But how can you refer to his peak years when you just admitted that you only really watched him closely at United, which was clearly after his peak years?

Because i have seen RvN, Henry and Shearer more and would trust them more than Zlatan. So i would want them more than Zlatan. Haven't seen anyone who has watched him closer and called him better than the top tier of strikers which those 3 would certainly be in.

 

[jem]

Because i have seen RvN, Henry and Shearer more and would trust them more than Zlatan. So i would want them more than Zlatan. Haven't seen anyone who has watched him closer and called him better than the top tier of strikers which those 3 would certainly be in.

Well I've seen Jesse Lingard play more than I've seen Robert Prosinecki play, so.....But in all seriousness, it's very subjective, and it's no slight on Zlatan if you think RVN, Henry and Shearer were better.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

His longevity is amazing.

He should have been our POTY in the 2016-2017 season. The only player in our attack all season scoring goals and if he didn't get injured, he probably could have hit 35-40 goals at his age across all competitions. I also think Jose should have rotated him more. We actually played some good football that season with Zlatan leading the line until he fizzled out after the league cup final. We were very unlucky in a lot of our games that finished as draws. Our football got considerably worse with Lukaku in the team instead of Zlatan.

I do think his biggest flaw is that the team 'has to be built around him' and it can stunt your team's overall ceiling. Great for winning league titles, but in certain CL knock-out ties, it may backfire.

Still an incredible player though. I think he is clearly in the top 10 of his generation for attackers. Arguably top 5.

 

[ForeverRed1]

Did he really play for us or did I dream that? *pinches self*

 

[giorno]

Honestly...

I think the best way to evaluate him is by separating him between floor raiser vs ceiling raiser

Ibrahimovic is the third best floor raiser of the last 20 years, right up there with the likes of Zidane, Ronaldinho and Henry(Messi and Cristiano are the notch above). If Ibrahimovic is your best player you're going to be a title challenger, period. Even if you surround him with dross, he'll turn it into gold

As a ceiling raiser however he lags behind a great many lesser players, such as Eto'o, Suarez*, Lewandowski, Rooney, Kaka...

*Suarez in fairness was possibly just plain better at his peak, certainly his best was better than Ibra's, but doesn't have the same consistency in his track record until barcelona where he was purely a ceiling raiser

 

[MikeeMike]

For me he didnt have any weakness. Also inspired the team. A natural leader akin to Cantona.
Gutted we didnt sign him years before along with Larsson.

 

[giorno]

Also btw, easy way to spot people who actually watched Ibra in his prime vs people who didn't

Those mentioned stats and goals very clearly did not watch him in his prime

 

[footballistic orgasm]

A very good and charismatic player, but could rarely be counted on when it comes to the big games/stages.

Always knew how to come up with some banging goals though.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Excellent player. Seems like a decent fella too.

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[Jaxa]

The guy is 39 in three weeks!, his football career just seems to be immortal, to still be playing elite level european football at that age is incredible, the drive and mentality is insane, i can only see Ronaldo emulating what he is doing now physically to be still able to play at that age, maybe even take it a step passed that also.

 

[Jaae]

I really wish he never got that injury while playing for us. £70+m wasted on a downgrade like Lukaku... that money could have been put into other areas of our squad at the time whilst we had a 2nd season of Zlatan.

Mourinho overplayed him. He looked shattered from the League Cup final onwards.