Mourinho Reveals Schweinsteiger Regret

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has expressed regret at the way he handled Bastian Schweinsteiger and stressed he could not stand in the way of the midfielder's decision to leave for Chicago Fire.

The boss has elaborated on the decision to approve the German's transfer to MLS and admitted it would have been useful to have Schweinsteiger in the squad during the hectic run-in, as the Reds chase twin targets at home and abroad.

The 32-year-old was introduced back into the first-team squad after impressing Mourinho with his influence in training and he embarks on his new career in the United States with the best wishes of everybody at the club.

"Bastian is in the category of players that I feel sorry for something that I did to him," revealed the boss at his pre-West Brom press conference. "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.

"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."