Van Gaal: Schweinsteiger Can Inspire Us

Louis van Gaal believes the best is yet to come from Bastian Schweinsteiger and the Manchester United manager will look to the Germany captain to inspire the Reds on the pitch in Tuesday's crunch clash with Wolfsburg.

The midfielder will play his first club match in his homeland since moving to Manchester from Bayern Munich in the summer, with the Reds needing to match or better PSV Eindhoven's result at home to CSKA Moscow in order to reach the last 16 of the Champions League.

Schweinsteiger has been in impressive form of late and scooped ManUtd.com's Player of the Month award for November on the back of opening his goalscoring account in the 1-1 draw at Leicester.

Van Gaal cites the 31-year-old as a vital component of his squad, describing him as a player "who can lead or guide the team." And with captain Wayne Rooney likely to miss the visit to the Volkswagen Arena with an ankle injury, the Reds boss will need experienced stars like Schweinsteiger to make their mark.

"The reason why we have bought Schweinsteiger is that he is a player who can lead or guide a team. That is important – not only his football qualities – but that he can lead and guide a team on the pitch," van Gaal told the Sunday newspapers.

"I believe that every match that he plays he can play better because until now we have not seen the best Schweinsteiger that I have seen at Bayern Munich, but he can guide the team."

Van Gaal was delighted to see Schweinsteiger get his name on the scoresheet with his maiden United strike last weekend and hopes there are at least four more goals to come from him in this campaign.

"He has always scored goals!" declared the boss. "I put him in the middle when I was coach at Bayern Munich because he played always on the wings at that time, so I put him in the middle because that is his strength.

"He was still playing there after I was gone from Bayern Munich. He shall not score ten goals, but he shall score five goals because he is good with his feet and his head as you have seen."