Manchester United manager José Mourinho has hit back at those who have criticised him for his apparent treatment of Bastian Schweinsteiger.
Schweinsteiger has been training with the reserves at Carrington recently after Mourinho reportedly told the 32-year-old that he was surplus to requirements at Old Trafford.
Mourinho’s decision to exile the former German international captain has come under fire, with a FifPro member calling for the Portuguese manager to be ‘jailed’, while Bayern Munich president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge also criticised Mourinho for the treatment of his former player.
But the United manager hit back in a press conference ahead of the Reds’ Community Shield clash against Leicester City, saying that this would be a relatively normal situation at any club in the world:
What is happening is what is happening in every club in the world. Which is that the manager decides his squad and chooses a certain number of players to face the season, and that’s it.
I normally like to work with 20 players plus the three goalkeepers, which is what I do for 15 years. But we have so many players, so many competitions, especially the Europa League, which changes the profile of the season a lot.
You have the big risk of travelling a lot, playing Premier League. So I made the decision to play with 23 players and two goalkeepers, which is a lot. I had to make my decisions, it’s simple.
Schweinsteiger joined United for Bayern Munich last summer for a mere £6.5 million, but he was hampered by injury in his first season in England and only made 13 Premier League starts under Louis van Gaal last season.
With the imminent arrival of Paul Pogba, the 32-year-old is expected to exit Old Trafford but United may find it difficult to find a suitor, with Schweinsteiger reportedly on £200,000-a-week wages.
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