“It can happen but I think to happen they need both to be in their best moment and they are not,” Mourinho continued.

“One is not because the situation in his team didn’t allow him to have any rest and he’s giving absolutely everything in every minute and we just manage to give him a little rest in cup matches and even so he was on the bench for emergency situations. Champions League was about the same, we had to fight until the last match for qualification and the boy is tired. He is physically a monster but not a machine and he’s feeling it.”

“And Zlatan is a man with an incredible injury, an injury that a 20-year-old man or young man would suffer, imagine a man 36 years old and so many miles in high-level football, so it is not easy.

“We did that against Burnley, we will do that in some more matches if we need to do, but for both to play together we need them to be at their best level.”

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Lukaku, Ibrahimovic, Mourinho and the rest of United will host Southampton later today.