Why run when you can fly? That was the pithy message that Zlatan Ibrahimovic sent out after his overhead-kick winner at Udinese. There is always a soundbite when it comes to the Swede but the astonishing thing is that in his 40th year, he still has the answers.

Against Verona on Sunday, with AC Milan set for defeat, his skied penalty looked set to prove costly. Still he had the last word. A last-minute equaliser maintaining Milan’s unbeaten start to the Serie A season. They remain top. He remains Italy’s top scorer. Eight goals in five games. Despite missing two matches because of Covid-19, he is the master marksman aiming to be capocannoniere once again and this flurry is no fluke.

The chances are still flowing, the ball still seemingly drawn to him inside the penalty box. Former Milan team-mate Antonio Cassano insists that Ibrahimovic is still the best player in Serie A and others are beginning to accept that he might just be right.

There will be those who argue that it says much about the standard of Italian football right now. The truth, surely, is that it says far more about the extraordinary staying power of Ibrahimovic.

Three-and-a-half years have passed since that cruciate knee ligament injury when playing for Manchester United against Anderlecht robbed him of his big moment in Stockholm.

The 2017 Europa League final looked like the perfect send-off. He was already 35, after all, and a major injury surely confirmed that his days at the top were over. When he battled back to fitness only to be deemed surplus to requirements by United, that seemed to confirm it.