Jose Mourinho believes Zlatan Ibrahimovic will play for Manchester United again in 2017

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Jose Mourinho has confirmed that Zlatan Ibrahimovic will return from injury far earlier than predicted and will be back in the Manchester United first team before the end of the year.

The Swede suffered a cruciate ligament knee injury at the end of last season which has kept him out for around six months already but has been back at United’s Carrington training base for the last few weeks and is even taking part in light ball work.

Ibrahimovic has set a personal target of a first-team return against CSKA Moscow in the Champions League at Old Trafford at the start of December and Mourinho believes that is a realistic goal.

“Zlatan will be back,” he said. “Zlatan is working here and under control, working as I would expect - so, so hard.

“He’s not back next week or a couple of weeks. Let him take his time. Do I believe he’ll be back in 2017? Yes I do.”

Mourinho was also coy on whether he would re-enter the transfer market in January, after missing out on a number of wingers in the summer, including Real Madrid’s Gareth Bale and Inter Milan’s Ivan Perisic.

“I don’t want to speak about signings or the market,” he added. “I wanted four players and clearly everybody knows the position. Maybe you know the player. It didn’t happen.”