Zlatan Ibrahimovic confident rivals will slip up and insists Manchester United are waiting to pounce in title race

Ibrahimovic would much rather win the Premier League title than the golden boot and believes United can still make up the 12 points that they trail leader's Chelsea by

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is refusing to allow Manchester United to be ruled out of the Premier League title race (Getty)

Manchester United’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic has warned that the side are “waiting” for their rivals to make mistakes in their pursuit of the title and implied that such a chance to make up ground on them will definitely come.

The Swede, whose 19 goals in 26 starts has been one of the extraordinary aspects of United’s season, admitted that there is preciously little margin for error now, because the draws which hampered United’s progress earlier in the season have left them 12 points adrift of Chelsea. But Ibrahimovic inferred that Jose Mourinho’s players have not given up on the title - as Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola publicly has - and said that the Old Trafford stumbles this season are in the past.

“Imagine if we’d got those [extra] points [earlier in the season], where we’d be now?” Ibrahimovic said. “It’d be a big difference. But, okay, we’re paying for it. We had a gap where there was a distance to the top five but now we’re closer. From second to us is five points, Chelsea is 12. We are there, we just wait for the other ones to do mistakes.

“If we could have won against Liverpool it’d have been a fantastic result but we take the draw and let’s see what the other teams do. Hopefully they make mistakes and have their own dip because we had our dips. We just need to win and keep going like we’re doing, we’ve got great confidence.”

Ibrahimovic introduced the notion of United winning the title to the conversation, stating that it would be something he would value vastly more than winning the Premier League golden boot. He, Chelsea’s Diego Costa and Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez all have 14 Premier League goals but Costa is in a state of civil war with his club and Sanchez has just admitted nearly £1m tax fraud in Spain, which theoretically could result in a jail sentence.

“Of course if I can continue to score goals to help my team great, I am doing it and will do it,” Ibrahimovic said. “But trust me: I prefer to win the Premier League, the collective trophies than any individual ones because seeing me winning something and not my team-mates is not the way I want it.

“I’d prefer to win the trophy and then the individual one comes by itself. That’s a second objective. It’s not my main target. I’m scoring, yes, but if I could be first in the table and have five goals and the media attacking me, saying: ‘He can’t do it in the Premier League’, I’d prefer to have it like that.

“Because it’s all about winning. Everybody will talk about you won. I’m here to win, I want to win. If I’d score three or four goals but I’m first in the competition, that would have been a nice feeling – because you’re first. Then people would say something else. ‘He should score more’. There’s always something to say. Because when you’re on top of the game, people try to find holes in your game.”