Mourinho rules out Ibrahimovic return

Jose Mourinho will not entertain signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic for the third time during his Manchester United tenure, and thus will persevere with the misfiring Romelu Lukaku.

Ibrahimovic, 37, has carried the LA Galaxy on his back since scoring a brace off the bench and inspiring a 4-3 victory over Los Angeles FC on his March debut. However, Mourinho insists he'll stick with Lukaku - the Belgian hasn't scored in eight matches - while he has little opportunity to rotate his personnel.

Lukaku is likely to start against former club Everton on Sunday while Alexis Sanchez remains sidelined through injury.

"No," was Mourinho's curt response when asked if an Ibrahimovic return was an option.

He then elaborated: "I feel that in every game. One day, it will be the game and one day (Lukaku) will score and, I'm sorry, one day his confidence levels will be back to normal, which clearly they are not (at the moment). But I always feel that every game is the game.

"If we had decided to give a rest to Lukaku against Juventus, who would have played as a striker? I don't think (assistant coach Michael) Carrick can play as a striker. (Marcus) Rashford? And then who plays as a winger?

"At the moment, we are not in the best situation to try to think about resting players or trying to find solutions. The solution now is to play with the players we have."

After joining United in 2016, Ibrahimovic scored 17 times in 28 Premier League outings before his first season in English football was cut short by a serious knee injury. He was subsequently released by Mourinho but, when the veteran Swede recovered surprisingly quickly from the setback, was re-signed and made a triumphant return to the first-team fold in November 2017. The injury did seem to have a lasting effect, however, as his on-pitch productivity for United waned.

Ibrahimovic has scored 22 goals over 26 MLS appearances for the LA Galaxy.