Swansea City vs Manchester United. Premier League.
Swansea.com StadiumAttendance20,938.
Monday 7 November 2016 06:21, UK
Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba scored as Manchester United ended their goal drought with a 3-1 victory over Swansea City.
With Jose Mourinho serving a one-match touchline ban, United broke a three-game Premier League run without scoring as Ibrahimovic netted twice to end his own goalless streak and Pogba fired home a stunner all before half-time.
Mike van der Hoorn scored a late consolation for a lacklustre Swansea, who are still without a win since the opening day of the season.
The victory moves United up to sixth, but they remain eight points off Liverpool at the top of the Premier League, while Swansea remain level on points with Sunderland at the bottom of the table.
Mourinho's side had a very experienced look to it as Michael Carrick and Phil Jones were handed their first Premier League starts of the season.
Wayne Rooney was also included from the off as United's youngest player was 23-year-old Paul Pogba.
Bob Bradley, who is still without a win as Swans boss, also rang the changes from Swansea's limp 3-1 defeat at Stoke, bringing in Leon Britton, Stephen Kingsley, Angel Rangel and Borja Baston.
United were at it from the first whistle while Swansea allowed their previously out-of-form visitors to play at whatever pace they liked.
It took just 13 minutes for United to strike as Pogba gave everyone a timely reminder of why he's been named on the 30-man shortlist for the Ballon d'Or.
A long ball into the Swansea area was only half cleared to the former Juventus man, who showed tremendous technique to half-volley the ball from 22 yards straight into the top-right corner.
Ibrahimovic last went seven league appearances without a goal while playing for Juventus in 2006, where he suffered a nine-game drought, but he ended his most recent run by doubling United's lead on 21 minutes.
Rooney found the Swede with a crisp pass, and from 25 yards out he dropped his shoulder before pinging a low effort beyond the grasp of Lukasz Fabianski, who should've done better. It was the 25,000th goal scored in the Premier League.
Rooney and Ibrahimovic revelled in the space afforded to them by the lacklustre Swansea midfield.
They linked up again to make it 3-0 on 33 minutes as Ibrahimovic scored his 400th league career goal.
Once again Swansea stood off Rooney, who played in the Swedish star to bruise through a weak tackle from Angel Rangel and poke home from 15 yards. The game was over as a contest from that moment as Swansea left the field at half-time to huge boos from their disgruntled home fans.
Jefferson Montero's introduction at the break improved Swansea, albeit only slightly, and they got their consolation on 69 minutes when Van der Hoorn rose to plant a header into the net from a Gylfi Sigurdsson set-piece.
It wasn't an entirely perfect 90 minutes for Mourinho as Ibrahimovic picked up his fifth booking of the season for a foul on Leroy Fer, which means he'll miss the next fixture against Arsenal.
Player Ratings
Swansea: Fabianski (4), Kingsley (5), Van der Hoorn (5), Mawson (4), Rangel (4), Britton (4), Ki (6), Sigurdsson (6), Routledge (4), Llorente (3), Borja (5)
Subs: Fer (6), Barrow (6), Montero (7)
Manchester United: De Gea (7), Young (7), Jones (7), Rojo (7), Darmian (6), Carrick (7), Fellaini (6), Mata (7), Pogba (8), Rooney (8), Ibrahimovic (9)
Subs: Schneiderlin (6), Fosu-Mensah (6), Lingard (6)
Man of the match: Zlatan Ibrahimovic
