Manchester United vs Sunderland: Glazers want £260,000-a-week Zlatan Ibrahimovic to stay for second season

The Swede scored one and provided two assists as United saw off David Moyes' Sunderland in a 3-1 win at Old Trafford

Ibrahimovic's stay at Old Trafford looks set to be extended (Getty)

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho said that the club’s American owners have already decided that they want to pay out the Swede’s £260,000 salary for at least another season beyond this one, after he contributed substantially to the side’s fourth successive Premier League win.

Ibrahimovic has scored 50 goals for club and country in all competitions since the start of December 2015 and has an option to extend his contract for a further year which Mourinho said the Glazer family want to be triggered. “It is activated in his brain and in my decisions and the owners and the board’s,” he said.

Though United’s win will be remembered by a Henrikh Mkhitaryan goal which the Armenian described on Monday night as the “best goal I ever scored,” Ibrahimovic’s all-round contribution was even better and he was arguably man of the match.

“I am not really surprised because he is a very intelligent guy and a very proud man,” Mourinho said of him. “[He decided] to come to Manchester United and the Premier League - a club with the level of expectation of Manchester United, the most difficult league in the world - because he knows he can do it. When we contacted him and he said yes he will come, I was completely clear that he would be ready and he is ready for more next season. He will be here again.”

Mourinho warned his club’s rivals that they would drop points as they play each other after the side’s four successive Premier League kept the side on the heels of the top four, though still outside of it.

With Liverpool playing Manchester City on New Year’s Eve, Mourinho is convinced United can begin to stake a serious claim in the top four after the turn of the year, though he used his familiar claim of ‘not caring’ about his side’s league position. “Last week, Man City against Arsenal [saw Arsenal drop points]. Somebody has to lose points and more of those matches will come. We are playing well, we are more confident.

“I don’t care, honestly [about our position.] I care about the way we play and I care about our results and to get the maximum points possible and what happens, happens.”

Mkhitaryan was a yard offside when he scored United’s third but that did not prevent it counting.

“It’s the best goal I ever scored,” he said. “I’m very excited. I had a great feeling. The first thing I did was to look to the assistant. I saw that it wasn’t offside and I started to celebrate. I was expecting the ball in front of me but I was already in front. I got the ball behind me so the only thing I could do was to hit it with the back heel. I did and I succeeded.”

The United manager said he didn’t expect Wayne Rooney, who missed the game with a strained muscle, to be fit for the home game against Middlesbrough on New Year’s Eve.

“I don’t think so. I hope so. I would like. He is always a player I would like. It is a strained muscle. I don’t know if in English the name is same as in Portuguese. He was not feeling very comfortable. I had my doubts.”