Mourinho regrets Schweinsteiger treatment

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho regrets how he treated Basitan Schweinsteiger during his first few months at Old Trafford.

The World Cup winner was forced to train with the club's Under-23s after being told by Mourinho that he was surplus to requirements, but he was introduced back into the first-team squad after impressing the manager in training.

Having made just four appearances for the club this season, Schweinsteiger asked Mourinho for permission to join Major League Soccer side Chicago Fire and the manager felt he could not stand in his way despite admitting the 32-year-old would have been useful during the run-in.

"Bastian is in the category of players that I feel sorry for something that I did to him. 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," Mourinho told reporters ahead of Saturday's match against West Brom.

"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."

When asked if he regreted his handling of the situation, Mourinho added: "Yes, yes, I do. 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." 

Leinster's European Champions Cup quarter-final against Wasps on Saturday is live on BT Sport 2, which is available as part of the eir Sport pack.