Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has backed Zlatan Ibrahimovic to make a full recovery from his anterior cruciate ligament injury and continue his playing career.
The ex-Sweden international could miss up to a year of action as a result of the damage sustained during the Red Devils' win over Anderlecht in the Europa League last week, initially leading to claims that he may hang up his boots.
Ibrahimovic has since moved to dismiss these suggestions, however, and Mourinho is confident that the 35-year-old - out of contract at Old Trafford this summer - will "fight" his way back to full fitness.
"The future is a big surgery and a long period of recovering. But the future is also in the hands of a very strong guy, mentally very strong, who wrote immediately on social media that he will stop [playing] when he wants, not when people think," he told reporters.
"It looks for me that he is not going to give up and he is going to fight. I am really pleased with that because this is the Zlatan I know. He fought all his life and that is what I told him - 'you have fought all your life since you were born.' I do not see a reason not to fight.
"We think he is in fabulous hands and [he needs to] recover from the injury and prepare himself mentally for the next step. I think the next step will always be something that he really wants, which is something I was saying before the injury in the period of doubt about his future; I have always said that."
Mourinho is unsure whether Ibrahimovic, the scorer of 28 goals in 46 appearances this season, will remain at United beyond the end of the current campaign.
Daniel Lewis
