While Morgan Schneiderlin might not be remembered as a flop per se at Manchester United, the Frenchman certainly could have left a bigger impact following his move from Southampton.
The defensive midfielder arrived with great hopes following many good seasons with the Saints under the likes of Mauricio Pochettino and Ronald Koeman, and while he had his moments, he never became the player many thought he could be at Old Trafford.
He then moved to Everton, where he fared about the same, if not a bit worse, before heading to OGC Nice in the summer, living through some ups and downs there too since.
Speaking to Eurosport about his current situation and his past, Schneiderlin was asked about his time at both Manchester United and Goodison Park, during which he revealed why he left one for the other.
He said: “My regret is to not have played the 2016 Euros, and I’ll have that regret all my life. Between 2014 and 2016, I’m in pretty much every national team squad, the manager had faith in me, he’d told me. The period of two to three months where I played less at Manchester cost me my spot as an important player for the France national team. It hurt me.
“I made the choice of going to Everton. I could have accepted to play less at Manchester United in 2016 when I came back from the Euros, but to not have played at the Euros, it really hit me. I told myself the most important was to play even if it was in a less exposed team. I maybe should have stayed at Manchester and kept my head down. I would have certainly had a chance, but that’s life”.
Schneiderlin added the best period of his career to date were three to four seasons where he felt ‘very, very strong’, almost ‘untouchable’, specifying those aforementioned campaigns under Pochettino and Koeman as being among them.
As for his ‘reference manager’, there’s no doubt it’s the Argentine, now in charge at Paris Saint-Germain, but he had few bad things to say about the numerous managers who oversaw his development, including José Mourinho: “I took pleasure in his trainings. He makes it so his players go to war with him”.
