Jose Mourinho opens up about Man United regret

Jose Mourinho has admitted that he regrets his treatment of Bastian Schweinsteiger after the German swapped Manchester United for Chicago Fire last week.

The retired Germany international completed a move to the Major League Soccer outfit after the World Cup winner struggled to tie down a regular starting spot in Mourinho’s first team.

Mourinho sent Schweinsteiger to train with the club’s Under-21 side following the manager’s appointment as Louis van Gaal’s successor back in May 2016.

The defensive midfielder scored one goal in 31 games in all competitions in his first season at Old Trafford but made a mere four appearances in the current campaign.

Mourinho ended Schweinsteiger’s exile before Christmas but the seven-time Bundesliga winner failed to secure a regular place in Jose Mourinho’s side.

Speaking at his pre-match media conference about his handling of Schweinsteiger, Mourinho opened up about his regrets about his management of the Bayern and Germany legend.

“Bastian is in the category of players that I feel sorry for something that I did to him,” Mourinho said.

“I don’t want to speak about him as a player, I don’t want to speak about him as whether I would buy him or not to buy him. I want to speak about him as a professional.

“I want to speak about him as a human being and that was the last thing I told him before he left – ‘I was not right with you once, I have to be right to you now’. So, when he was asking me to let him leave, I had to say ‘yes, you can leave’ because I did it once, I cannot do it twice, so I feel sorry for the first period with him. He knows that.

“I’m happy that he knows because I told him and I will miss a good guy, a good professional, a good influence in training. A very good influence. So I couldn’t stop him going, even though, until the end of the season, we have so many matches and probably we would need him for a few matches or a few periods. I had to let him go and now publicly we wish him and his wife a very happy life in Chicago.

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“Yes, yes, I do [regret his treatment last summer],” he added. “I would let him be in the squad. I knew, at that moment, we had too many players. If you remember, at that time, we had many players in this doubtful situation and we still had Morgan Schneiderlin and Memphis Depay and we had Andreas Pereira and Tyler Blackett and James Wilson.

“We had a huge squad in the beginning. But, after knowing him as a professional, and as a person, the way he was behaving and the way he was respecting my decisions as a manager, yes, I regret it and it is no problem for me to admit it and he knows that because I told him.”

Manchester Untied are in fifth place in the Premier League table.