Captain Zlatan? Why it makes total sense for United

Manchester United’s season could yield two trophies and a return to the Champions League. It would rank as a success for many, a stepping stone for another. “I never leave a job unfinished,” said their top scorer this week. It was the clearest indication Zlatan Ibrahimovic will stay. It was also a sign that sitting fifth does not lie well with a man whose previous 15 seasons produced 13 league titles (two at Juventus revoked because of the Calciopoli scandal, but counted by Ibrahimovic nonetheless).

Jose Mourinho may call it a job begun. Ibrahimovic branded it a job unfinished. He won the EFL Cup almost on his own. It scarcely seems enough to satisfy his hunger or, arguably, his ego. If other clubs need success to keep their marquee players, perhaps United secured Ibrahimovic for a second season with their early inability to mount a title challenge.

Los Angeles Galaxy seemed to court him; Napoli too. Mourinho may not need to be at his most persuasive to keep a player who will be coveted when his contract expires this summer. But if he does, he has a status symbol to confer. The carrot of the captaincy is considerable.

Ibrahimovic’s past provides proof. He was planning to end his Sweden career in 2010. Instead, Erik Hamren elevated him from the ranks. It had an impact. Forty of his 62 international goals came with the armband. He became more potent, more purposeful. “I even liked the fact I was the one taking the crap in the media if we lost,” he wrote in I Am Zlatan. “It got me buzzing.”

Ibrahimovic has seemed to shoulder a huge burden this season, the man in his 36th year who has figured in 41 of United’s 48 games and scored 26 goals. If one response would be to find others to share his load, another might be to increase his responsibilities.

Because a vacancy is opening up at Old Trafford and Ibrahimovic, the on-pitch leader in all but name, is the logical candidate to fill it. Certainly Wayne Rooney’s current position feels untenable. If he does not leave in the summer, a substitute would become more of the sort of distraction that could irritate Mourinho. Michael Carrick, his loyal deputy, could be a quietly diligent club captain but the delay in securing the veteran to a new contract highlights the reservations the Portuguese has about him. Carrick has only started 12 of 27 league games this season and, even if he stays, his outings may be rarer if Mourinho adds a midfielder in the summer.

And the next man in line at the moment is Chris Smalling, last spotted swiping ineffectually and failing to executive a simple clearance as Rudy Gestede scored for Middlesbrough before going on to injure team-mate Phil Jones in England training. Smalling is not necessarily as pratfall-prone as that suggests, but his seven years at Old Trafford have been notable for more regression and stagnation than progress.

He could be promoted by default, but he would be undeserving of the honour. Since Denis Law assumed the armband in 1964, United’s club captains have been the striker, Bobby Charlton, George Graham, Willie Morgan, Martin Buchan, Ray Wilkins, Bryan Robson, Steve Bruce, Eric Cantona, Roy Keane, Gary Neville, Nemanja Vidic and Rooney. Apart from Graham and Morgan, who led United in their relegation season of 1973-74, they have been the great and the very good, the vocal and those who led by example. Rooney belonged in their company; the problem was that the captaincy came when decline had set in.

But as the chosen ones show, skippering United tends to require a certain stature. Smalling lacks it, and while David de Gea and Ander Herrera are other automatic choices who could come into consideration, Ibrahimovic’s outsize personality equips him for a club that often likes to project a swagger. Neville was defiantly local, Keane the perfectionist who seemed forever unsatisfied, but Cantona comparisons have abounded in the Swede’s time at Old Trafford. The Frenchman was the most unconventional choice of all. He also showed that talent, audacity and idiosyncrasy are not necessarily constrained by being deemed officer material.

The sense is that Mourinho has imported his own power structure. While Rooney has descended to high-profile insignificance, the manager’s on-field lieutenants have become the Mino Raiola axis of Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba, similarly sizeable figures and exuberant characters who look for each other at every opportunity.

Unlike Pogba, Ibrahimovic has delivered more often than not when it has mattered. Significantly, too, they are the Mourinho disciples. A manager who places an emphasis on loyalty had little option at Real Madrid but to keep his enemy Iker Casillas as captain. He inherited Rooney at Old Trafford and, more happily, Javier Zanetti at Inter. He has not actually appointed a captain since 2004, and even then John Terry was chosen by the Chelsea players.

A manager defined by his decision-making has not made one of the biggest calls of all for 13 years. This is a chance to change that, but even if promising Ibrahimovic the armband next season is the decisive factor in securing his signature on a new deal, he should be the face and figurehead of a side that bears more of the stamp of Mourinho.