Jose Mourinho wants more goals from Wayne Rooney and Manchester United forwards

Wayne Rooney has not scored a Premier League goal since the opening weekend

Jose Mourinho has told Wayne Rooney and the rest of Manchester United's forwards to ease the goalscoring burden on Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Rooney started the season just four goals short of Sir Bobby Charlton's United scoring record, and the England captain has reached mid-December still one shy of the mark.

His only Premier League goal to date came at Bournemouth on the opening weekend, while United have managed just 19 in 14 league games.

Ibrahimovic has eight of those, and Mourinho wants the likes of Anthony Martial, Marcus Rashford and Rooney to contribute more.

"With me, he is an attacking player," the United boss said ahead of this weekend's Super Sunday game against Tottenham. "In the national team, they can do with him what they want to do.

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has praised Henrikh Mkhitaryan for working hard to improve the physical and tactical aspects of his game. Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has praised Henrikh Mkhitaryan for working hard to improve the physical and tactical aspects of his game.

"In the national team he is their player, he is not my player, and they can do what they want. If they want to play him right-back, they can play him right-back. It's not my problem.

"In my team, he is an attacking player - he will play as a nine or a 10, or eventually coming from one of the sides.

"So as an attacking player, normally he scores more goals. He scored a couple, I think at Fenerbahce and one in the Premier League.

"We expect more goals from him, yes, but we expect more goals from everyone in the team.

"Maybe Zlatan is the one [exception] but as the main striker it is normal that he has more goals scored. But all the other attacking players, we expect more goals from them."

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has eight of Manchester United's 19 league goals

United had summer signing Eric Bailly back in their defence against Zorya Luhansk on Thursday after six weeks out, but the Ivory Coast centre-half is off to the Africa Cup of Nations in the New Year.

Mourinho hopes Chris Smalling will return from a foot injury in time to cover, but the England man is still out this weekend along with Luke Shaw.

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