Manchester United announced the re-signing of Zlatan Ibrahimovic on another year-long deal. The Swede will take a pay cut from his initial wage bracket of £350,000, and will now earn £125,000 a week. That’s a massive pay cut and one can infer that he will not feature as heavily this season as he did in the last.

Manchester United do possess a massive strength in depth, Zlatan is a massive addition given his experience. Let’s look at how he can be expected to fit into this exciting United squad.

• A supporting striker in a 4-4-2 formation

Zlatan is a complete number 9. He has the dexterity, physical presence and the intelligence that can be matched by a very few in world football. His signing will be a huge positive for Lukaku, as he now has a mentor who can play alongside and teach him a few tricks of the trade.

He can be employed next to Lukaku in a traditional 4-4-2 formation. This would mean a lot of the football be played down the wings. Rashford has a deadly whip when delivering from wide areas, and we all know Martial can dance his way through the defence and set up a tap in for either of the strikers.

While Lukaku has already outscored most of the current day greats when they were of his age, he still has a lot to learn when it comes to his positioning. Playing alongside the best is a learning process that anyone will profit from.

• A surprise #10

Zlatan Ibrahimovic, for most of last season, was seen coming deep into midfield for getting a touch of the ball and to keep it moving in midfield. Many of the fans were left puzzled as they felt a striker should be in the box and not helping out in midfield. But given his intelligence on the ball, he has the ability of playing a through ball that may catch the opposition defence off guard. This would mean switching to a 4-3-1-2 formation. With Rashford and Lukaku up front; and Zlatan as the playmaker behind them.

He doesn’t have the pace for beating defenders, but he could use his vision to devastating effect when played as the only attacking midfielder.

Rashford can use his lung-bustling pace to evade defenders, and Lukaku can use his physicality to outmuscle the defenders to get to a pass from Zlatan.

How can Jose best utilize the soon to be 36-year-old powerhouse? We shall find out soon enough.