United had refused to speak about the incident ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League defeat at Wolfsburg, but West Ham were adamant that Schweinsteiger was guilty of foul play. They’d say being in the Europa League is humiliating – former United defender Rio Ferdinand called it “embarrassing” – for a club of United’s wealth and stature. “We’re disappointed. But if you look back we should have won our last game at home to PSV”, lamented midfielder Marouane Fellaini, talking to BT Sport.
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“You don’t want to come out of your house, you don’t want to walk around Manchester. People are looking around at each other rather than saying, “I will drag you through”.
The All Whites captain will get the results of a scan tomorrow and manager Slaven Bilic says it doesn’t look good.
Entering stoppage time, United needed to score twice.
Louis van Gaal is 18 months and $375 million into his “process” of rebuilding Manchester United. “We weren’t very lucky today with the decisions from the referee”, said Van Gaal.
How, for its biggest match of the season and having spent that much money, did Van Gaal end up with one fit striker (Anthony Martial) available?
Van Gaal was especially unhappy with veteran midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, who he was banking on to guide United through to the knockout stages.
He added: “I’ve said to the players, now it’s over in the Champions League. The Barcleona game was a huge effort for all the players”.
Van Gaal was given the bulging war chest to ensure crucial Champions League games such as Tuesday’s showdown at Wolfsburg could be negotiated.
But United’s hierarchy are believed to be fully behind the 64-year-old, with senior club sources briefing journalists earlier this week that they expect him to see out his contract, which expires in 2017.
While Europe will now likely be less of a priority, he will be under the spotlight domestically as United sit just three points behind current league leaders Leicester City as a Premier League title is now expected to become the main focus this season.
The Red Devils suffered a repeat of their 2011/12 European campaign when defeat in their final group game at FC Basel also denied them a place in the last 16.
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“You’ve got to give even an experienced player like him time to adapt to a new league”, Low said.
