Zlatan Ibrahimovic was having a fairytale season until disaster struck during a Europa League tie with Anderlecht.

The already legendary striker had notched 29 goals in his debut campaign with Manchester United and at 35-years-old, was proving plenty of doubters wrong.

However, after landing awkwardly, Zlatan suffered back ligament damage and went to America to have surgery on his knee.

Considering his age and the severity of the injury - Chelsea's Kurt Zouma spent eight months on the sidelines with something very similar - rumours began to circulate that the former PSG and Barcelona forward's career may be over.

But, in typical Zlatan style, the larger than life forward has insisted he will play again, it's just not certain he will for Man United.

That's because his contract - which was revealed to earn him £367,640-a-week at Old Trafford this week - is up at the end of the season.

His agent, Mino Raiola, also believes that his client will grace the pitch again and made some startling remarks about how the surgeons who worked on Zlatan felt about his knee.

"His knees are so strong that doctors said they had never seen anything like it.

Zlatan’s knee is so strong that the doctor’s want him to return after his career to do research on him," Raiola claimed. "They work at the world’s best research institute for knees and ligaments."

That's pretty ridiculous from just about every angle, but, also, mildly believable. I mean, after all, this is Zlatan we are talking about here!

But, we don't have to wonder if the claim is true any longer after Swedish paper Aftonbladet investigated the strength of Mino Raiola’s claims.

Aftonbladet have spoken to doctor Jon Karlsson, who studied together with the doctors who performed the surgery on Zlatan, to get his understanding of the situation.

His most telling quote from the interview? This gem: “I think it’s bulls***!”

Of course, Raiola is just trying to keep his star's stock as high as possible in the face of a bad injury, but maybe he should tone it down a bit.