Bastian Schweinsteiger had a point to prove. As he trudged off in the 69th minute, having been replaced by Michael Carrick, there could be no doubt he hadn’t proved it. The last time he faced Wolfsburg at the Volkswagen Arena he was on the end of a 4-1 drubbing, a rare and humbling outing in a Bayern Munich shirt that he experienced in January this year. And while he went on to win an eighth Bundesliga title last season the midfielder was right to note that “something big” was happening in Lower Saxony.
Watching the shadows of Julian Draxler and Max Kruse whizz past him during Wolfsburg’s victory will not have made the Germany World Cup winner change his mind in the 11 months that have passed since. Sat in his favoured deep-lying midfield role for United he was powerless to prevent the Bundesliga runners-up from cutting through the centre ground that he used to so bullishly call his own. Here was one of only two Champions League winners in United’s starting lineup being made to play the role of passenger on an occasion when he was entrusted with the keys by Louis van Gaal and told to drive his players safely home in territory he knew better than anyone else.
These big occasions were the ones he was brought in for £14m to control. But the player whose nervelessness would surely see United right when others were losing their heads, at times, appeared to be losing his own. His lack of mobility could be excused if he controlled traffic as fastidiously as he had in his pomp. But the mix-up with Memphis Depay that led to Wolfsburg’s second goal was evidence that the surefootedness that United had hoped he might rediscover on his return to Germany was still an unclaimed item in lost and found. He started well enough but not in the way you would expect him to, pressing high up the pitch and helping to spread uncertainty in the Wolfsburg defence that would eventually be pounced upon ruthlessly by Anthony Martial in the 10th minute. But it was all downhill thereafter.
He wasn’t helped in his brief by the inclusion of Marouane Fellaini as his midfield partner, a player who while not being any more mobile than Carrick, was not as comfortable in possession and only helped to invite Wolfsburg pressure midway through the first half.
A mitigating factor could be that a match that descended into a helter-skelter counterattacking carve-up was the very worst type for him to get a firm hold of, but in other domestic and European performances this season, his staid passing has been anything but dominant, regularly shuffling the ball sideways and in doing so shifting responsibility. The footballer who for so long has purred like a Mercedes, coughed and spluttered as VW logos raced past him on too many occasions until he was substituted.
Perhaps most damning is the fact that a young United team produced one of the club’s most gutsy and attacking displays of the season in spite of Schweinsteiger, something that might colour Van Gaal’s view of the midfielder in the remaining games this season. Three players under the age of 22, Martial, Memphis and Jesse Lingard, played with verve and vigour but the man who was supposed to be marshalling them, could not join in.
Fellaini showed more purpose than Schweinsteiger as the match wore on and the fear must be for Van Gaal that the player he hoped to build his season around may be a spent force. The Europa League beckons for United now, a second-tier competition that will seem alien to such a garlanded player.
But the club’s presence there is in no small part down to their experienced German’s diminishing influence. The hard truth is that Van Gaal may have to shelve grand ideas for his trophy player.
