José Mourinho gave Bastian Schweinsteiger a frank and brutal reminder yesterday that he is not wanted at Manchester United by saying that the World Cup victor had slipped behind the club’s academy hopefuls in the midfield pecking order.
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“I have 23 players in the squad and in principle, nobody is leaving”, said the manager. He has a contract with Manchester United and has chose to stay.
As for his own team, whose league campaign has so far seen them beat Bournemouth 3-1 away and Southampton 2-0 at home, Mourinho said: “For me, the important thing is we had a very hard start with a unusual pre-season with players coming step by step and not much time to work, but we won the Community Shield (beating Leicester 2-1) and six points”.
“I think that more points will be needed to win the competition because numerous top teams underperformed a year ago, which was unbelievable for the beauty of the competition”, Mourinho told his pre-match media conference at Carrington on Friday afternoon.
‘If you have any kind of problem or opportunity I have a few young players in the academy that I will be more than happy to give them an acceleration in their process’. But that’s the way they have found to get points. That’s five players for two positions. It’s very, very hard that an opportunity will arise.
Mourinho said: “I thought after I read some quotes from people at Bayern Munich that they would run to Manchester to bring him (Schweinsteiger) back, but no, that did not happen”. “I am quite surprised that Mr Rummennigge is not here now to take him back”. “I can not choose competitions, I can not say Zlatan doesn’t play one single Europa League game”. I can not say Marcus doesn’t play in the Premier League.
Mourinho made sure that all the players he felt he may need over the coming nine months were present when he made his address, understood to have been one of the most passionate he has made since he arrived at Old Trafford.
Mourinho even went as far as saying, he would give a reserve team player the opportunity to play than the club’s £160,000-a-week midfielder.
The Portuguese coach has certainly gone with quality over quantity, with the signings of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Eric Bailly, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and world-record buy Paul Pogba, and Mourinho has said that he is more than happy to stick with the squad that he has.
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In Europe, United were handed a tough group stage in this season’s Europa League, after being drawn with Fenerbahce, Feyenoord and Ukrainian side Zorya yesterday.
