The injury to Zlatan comes at an inopportune time, as Manchester United have several important fixtures in the upcoming weeks.
T-shirt tributes aside, United look to be cruising to a comfortable win over Burnley, a victory which will put them just one point behind City in the league table with six games left to play.
Ibrahimovic requires surgery after sustaining knee ligament damage during United's Europa League quarter-final win over Anderlecht on Thursday.
Jose Mourinho took a risk at the weekend, making eight changes to his Manchester United team for their Premier League encounter with Burnley. No player deserves to be injured, but these two cases are even more sad.
The Red Devils lined up against Burnley without two of their best performers this season, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Marcos Rojo. "Its no news I got injured so I will be out of fotball for a while".
'I don't know - dead (on his feet), he is for sure, ' Mourinho added.
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Not only has the former Sweden worldwide possibly played his final game for the Red Devils as his one-year deal expires in June, but there had been speculation that given the severity of the injury coupled with his age that he may be forced to call time on his career. I would do a last push.
"If I was Smalling or Jones, I would play Thursday, with anything, I would", Mourinho said after their 2-0 win over Burnley on Sunday.
"No player deserves to be injured but I think in this case it's even more sad because Zlatan, in this stage of his career it's really, really hard, and Marcos probably at this moment in his career is playing very well for us and also finally getting a position as central defender in the global team, so we're really sad for them".
Manchester United performed well enough without him on Sunday beating Burnley 2-0 with French forward Anthony Martial and veteran Wayne Rooney scoring. If they are safe thinking and they are surrounded by people with the same mentality they have, it is more time, more cautious.
But while you'd have probably assumed that both Manchester United and Jose Mourinho are now fully focused on achieving victory over Manchester City, the Portuguese manager has instead insisted that his attention is actually on the semi-finals of the Europa League.
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