Gary Neville has slammed Manchester United's treatment of Bastian Schweinsteiger as "illegal" after the former Germany international revealed he was made to train with the club's under-16 team during the summer of 2016.
After sustaining a knee injury in the narrow FA Cup third round win against Sheffield United on January 9, Schweinsteiger only made four substitute appearances in the 2015-16 season yet travelled to Dubai, Miami and Stuttgart to watch his partner, tennis player Ana Ivanovic. "It was 2016 and I was with the German national team, we went far in the competition reaching the semi-finals, so I stepped in a little later and the team were in the US for a pre-season tour," said Schweinsteiger.
“I asked him whether I could talk to the manager in the afternoon, so when I came back from training with the under 16s, where I trained so bad because I didn’t know what was going on or it was a joke, I then had a meeting with Jose Mourinho in the afternoon. "In that moment, I was still super happy at United, I loved to wear the jersey, I loved it. I was thinking that maybe it was just a period, I will train now and keep myself fit and maybe one day they’ll change their mind. My dream was to always step back out into Old Trafford."