Cast your minds back to the summer of 2015 – a time when Manchester United fans started to believe that their side were well and truly back on the right track.
With David Moyes now a distant memory, Louis van Gaal had steered them back to the Champions League in his first season with the club. It hadn’t been perfect under the Dutchman by any means, but with a few key additions, there was a feeling within the club’s supporters that they’d taken the first few steps towards getting back to the summit of English football.
Van Gaal had also appeared to make huge strides towards repairing a central midfield that had been understrength for years. In came Bastian Schweinsteiger – who had led Germany to a World Cup a year earlier – and in came Morgan Schneiderlin – a player who had impressed at Southampton. ‘Schmidfield’ they were dubbed by excited United fans.
18 months or so later, and things have changed considerably. Van Gaal is long gone and while Schmidfield’s two members remain at Old Trafford, their days are quite clearly numbered.
While Schweinsteiger has struggled with injuries and a Jose Mourinho-imposed exile, Schneiderlin has simply failed to do enough to hold down a place in the United starting XI. As a result, it’s long been expected that he will move on in the January window.
On Thursday, West Brom tabled a bid for the Frenchman. A day later, Mourinho confirmed that the player had asked to leave the club when asked about it, adding:
“Great professional, fantastic boy, very honest, very open and opens his heart a couple of times. My answer is simple: if he’s playing regular with me I have the right to say no way. If he’s not playing regular I have no right to tell a player that wants to be happy – to say to a player you’re going nowhere.
“My answer was, ‘If the offer is right and our board thinks that the offer is a good offer in relation to the quality of a very good player like Morgan, I would not stop him to go’.”
As for his destination, many are far from sure that it’s the Hawthorns. Almost certainly because we told you all in this tweet a few weeks back, many reports are tipping the midfielder to move to Everton.
Morgan Schneiderlin is on to stretch his legs ahead of a January move to Everton.
— FootballJOE (@FootballJOE) October 26, 2016
Wherever he does end up, he’s likely to be one of the more high profile transfers of the January window.
