Zlatan Might Turn Out to be Manchester United's Best Acquisition This Season

Jose Mourinho's ballyhooed Manchester United managerial debut, his dream appointment almost a decade in the making, was overshadowed by a veteran signing: Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who scored the late winner in the 2-1 Community Shield triumph over Leicester City.

Paul Pogba's highly anticipated Manchester United debut on Friday, his first game as the sport's most expensive player ever at a $116 million transfer fee, was overshadowed by a player who had cost nothing: Zlatan Ibrahimovic again, the free agent acquisition who scored the first half go-ahead goal on an authoritative header and also got the other tally in a 2-0 win over Southampton.

Some 36 minutes into the game, Wayne Rooney strolled to the corner to dispatch a cross – since all he does now is stroll and dispatch crosses. Zlatan casually ambled into position, awaited the lazily arcing ball, and rose above Jose Fonte to power the header to the opposite corner.

Goal; Brilliant cross from Rooney but a fantastic header from Zlatan Ibrahimovic!!!August 19, 2016

That made it three goals in three games for the manbunned Swedish eccentric. When he converted a penalty in the second half, that made it four in three.

Pogba, central defender Eric Bailly and attacking midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan were considered the big United signings this summer, a staggering cumulative sum of almost $200 million spent on them. At 34, Ibrahimovic was merely considered a nice pickup for a thin front line. Certainly, the tall striker remained massively productive for Paris Saint-Germain until his very last game there. But then it was reasoned that PSG's utter domination of an increasingly shallow French league gave him ample opportunity to pad his stats.

But after his start at United, we have to allow for the possibility that Ibrahimovic is actually still in his prime. Conventional wisdom posits that he should be long past that point, entering the MLS-phase of superstardom – or, alternatively, the Middle East/China/[insert emerging market] portion of his career.

Players who mature quickly tend to fizzle out sooner as well. Zlatan broke out in the 2002-03 season, when he was just 21 and brought Ajax to the brink of the Champions League semifinals. He has won a dozen league titles since then, including eight in a row – and across three countries. And he's never ceased to be among the half dozen or so best strikers in the world, both for club and country.

Instead of slowing down, Ibrahimovic is coming off the most prolific season of his career, bagging 50 goals in 51 appearances, his best-ever tally by nine. Goals are an imprecise measure of a player, but for a striker they are nevertheless relevant. Consider, then, that Zlatan's production slopes upward. He didn't have a 30-goal year until the season he turned 30. His first 40-goal campaign came the year he turned 32. And the aforementioned 50-goal haul came at 34.

Zlatan's output has grown commensurately with his ego and weirdness.

And both of those stand at an all-time high.