Zlatan Ibrahimovic: Rating His Performance for Paris Saint-Germain This Far

Zlatan Ibrahimovic arrived in Paris this summer during one of the largest outlays of transfer spending ever seen. The Swedish striker carries a tremendous resume filled with stops at Europe's biggest clubs. The resume, along with his talent, brought along a huge price tag—a price tag that will always be attached to any judgement of his value to PSG.

It is easy to be harsh in the judgement of a player's performance when he makes more per half than most people make in a year. To his credit, Ibrahimovic has had no reservations to carry the weight of the expectations associated with the cost of his services. With his high level of confidence in his own abilities, Ibra meets those lofty expectations head-on.

Despite the lackluster start to the campaign by PSG, Ibrahimovic has delivered through the first four matches. Considering he has been the main focus of every team he has played against makes his early season accomplishments even more impressive.

Ibra kicked off the season by bringing PSG back from the dead with a second half brace against Lorient. By securing the 2-2 draw in the home opener, Ibra helped to spare the blushes of an opening loss to a lower-caliber squad.

An injury kept Zlatan out of the second match against Ajaccio. His presence was sorely missed as PSG struggled to maintain possession and create chances against the Ligue 1 minnows.

Zlatan returned at less than 100 percent against Bordeaux. Ibrahimovic did create a couple of chances out of nothing in a game where Bordeaux was determined to play a total defensive style. By introducing a third centre-back into the lineup, Bordeaux constantly had two players on Ibra.

Ibra broke through against Lille in a highly anticipated matchup that saw the Swede put two in the net during the 2-1 win. His second brace of the season led to PSG's first win of the campaign after three successive draws.

Overall, I would rate Ibra's performance to date a 9 out of 10. His finishing has been excellent as he has made the most out of his chances. He also has all four of PSG's goals this season.

Initially I was going to score him a little lower due to not creating as many opportunities for his teammates as was expected. I changed my mind after considering that he has only played one game with Ezequiel Lavezzi and two games with Javier Pastore. The lack of consistent game time with some of his key mates is not a fault of his own.