It's been a frustrating couple of months for Romelu Lukaku and Zlatan Ibrahimovic at Manchester United, especially the former.

Both players have come under fire recently for their performances, with Lukaku scoring only twice in his last eight Premier League games.

As for Ibrahimovic, who successfully recovered from his ACL injury last April, the 36-year-old looks rusty and has only played 103 minutes of league football since the start of November.

He too has been struggling for goals, scoring just once in five outings for United against Bristol City in the EFL Cup.

Jose Mourinho was without Lukaku and Ibrahimovic through injury for New Year's Day's trip to Everton, but United put on a fine display and won 2-0.

Anthony Martial broke the deadlock before Jesse Lingard doubled his side's lead with a sublime solo goal and finish from outside the 18-yard box.

United actually looked OK going forward without Lukaku and Ibrahimovic and now Mourinho has dropped a surprise truth bomb about his two strikers.

According to Mourinho, United are actually more dynamic and play with more freedom without Lukaku and Ibrahimovic. He said:

"I think even the first half after 10 or 15 minutes the team was in control. We found a way to play without a player like Lukaku or like Zlatan with more dynamic and more freedom.

"We thought it was important [to have] the third midfield player. Tired people, not many players to rotate, we could anticipate that Sam [Allardyce] was going to make a lot of changes.

"We knew an extra third midfield player to give us more consistency in the middle and the performance was really good."

Awkward. Mourinho trialled playing Lukaku and Ibrahimovic up front together during Boxing Day's 2-2 draw to Burnley, but it didn't work.

As a result, the Portuguese manager has confirmed he won't be trying that again until they're both a peak physical fitness.

"For it to happen, they both need to be in their best moment and they are not," said Mourinho. "[Lukaku] is physically a monster, but he is not a machine and I think he is feeling it.

"Zlatan is a man with an incredible injury and an injury that a 20-year-old young man would suffer with. Imagine a man of 36 years old and so many miles in high level football.

"It is not easy. We did that against Burnley and will do it in some more matches if we need to do. For both of them to play together we really need them to be at their best level."