Manchester United striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic feels the team is not good enough to be at the top of the English Premier League (EPL) football championship.
Manchester United, unbeaten for 20 matches, are currently at the sixth place in the EPL standings with 54 points from 29 games.
They are hoping to qualify for the 2017-18 Champions League by winning the current season's Europa League, which currently is at the quarter-finals stage.
Manchester United coach Jose Mourinho has come under a lot of criticism following the team's below-par performance. But Ibrahimovic asserted that the coach is over-achieving given the circumstances.
"I think the coach is doing the absolute maximum with the team he has. 200 percent," Ibrahimovic told the Daily Mail.
"If we were good enough to be No. 1, we would be No. 1 in the table. He still has the same winning mentality, because that you don't lose."
"When you have it, you have it. It is nothing you learn or can try to be. Either you are, or you are not," he added.
The 35-year-old former sweden captain felt that Mourinho's winning mentality will eventually seep down into the entire squad.
"I know him very well. He is direct in his work," Ibrahimovic added. "He likes to look into your eyes and tell you if you're s--- or not. I prefer that."
"He sends you the message he is thinking and he is the boss, he decides and controls the situation. It is the way it works and I am from the old generation, which I think was more like that.
"At half-time against Everton, he told us we were not good enough. We should hear it because we were not."
--IANS
dm/gau/vt
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