Bastian Schweinsteiger has been magnificent in his response to brutal Jose Mourinho

That is how to do it. Restrained, gracious, dignified to the last Bastian Schweinsteiger this week turned to social media to clarify where he stood at Manchester United. There was no two-finger salute, no whinging, no grumbly complaint about his treatment by the new manager Jose Mourinho, just a respectful note of fond farewell.

“MUFC will be my last club in Europe,” he wrote on Twitter. “I respect other clubs but Manchester United is the only one that could make me leave Bayern Munich. I will be ready, if the team needs me. That is all I can say about the current situation. I want to thank the fans for the amazing support over the past few weeks.”

It seems that the former German captain will be heading to China or the USA as the transfer window comes down, cashing in for a glorious mink-lined retirement on easy street. If anyone deserves it, Bastian Schweinsteiger does.

And the fact is, it is the right time for him to go. Mourinho may be harsh in his dismissal of a player of such distinction, sending him off to train with the reserves, making it clear from the moment he arrived at the club in June that the 32-year-old has no future in the first team. But he is right. Wonderful a midfielder as Schweinsteiger has been, he is no longer capable of fulfilling the role required of him. In truth, he has not been for more than eighteen months. The very fact he was at Old Trafford at all was as ridiculous an error of judgment as any made at the club since Sir Alex Ferguson retired.

Indeed, watching him struggle last season, slowed by injury, weighed down by one of the most substantial backsides ever to be forced into a pair of football shorts, was a poignant sight. Because there is not a United fan anywhere in the world, watching him struggle to keep pace with the harem scarem mad dash of the Premier League, who would not have relished the sight of Schweini in a red shirt five years ago. Back then he was absolutely what the club required, a box-to-box midfield enforcer of a type United had so sorely lacked since Roy Keane walked out in 2005. If the German could have been prised away from Munich back then, what an addition he would have made to the pantheon of United greats.

But Munich were not about to let him go. Not when he was at his peak. When Jupp Heynckes, the club’s treble-winning coach, was asked ahead of the Champions League final against Chelsea in 2012 who was his single most important player, he did not hesitate.

“Schweinsteiger” he said. “He is the best there is.”

And this was at a club not short of stellar talent. Franck Ribery, Arjen Robben, Manuel Neuer: these were not a bad collection. But, as the coach acknowledged, it was Schweinsteiger who mattered. He made the team tick, he gave it forward momentum; his drive, work rate and efficiency were the fuel in the Bayern engine.

And every United fan watching him at a distance back then would have loved to see him stride around Old Trafford. It was a stage made for him. Which is why when Louis Van Gaal signed him in the summer of 2015 there was so much hope. The supporters knew what he could be, what he could add.

But they also recognised that Munich are not a club likely to let such an important component go if he were still contributing. Hamstrung by injury, the sad truth was this was not the Schweini of old. Sure, he had been there in the white shirt of his country winning the World Cup in the summer of 2014. But even then, he was not the player he was. And that was before a final knee problem slowed him to the point of being virtually stationary.

Van Gaal clearly bought him because he remembered what he had been when the Dutchman had been in charge in Bavaria. He appreciated that what United needed was Schweini at his best. The thing was, anyone with a functioning pair of eyes could see Schweini was no longer at his best. To buy him in the summer of 2015, even at a cut down price of £6million, was a hopeless piece of wishful thinking. Sure he might be exactly what was required. But so might Paul Scholes or Ryan Giggs or Gary Neville if you could somehow reverse time.

When they saw him finally step out for United, the match-going fans gave Schweini the reception he deserved. Whatever his present debilitation this was, after all, a proper player. And he tried to respond to their enthusiasm. How he tried. The trouble is time and injury had taken an all too visible toll, a toll which no operation who conducted proper due diligence should ever have tolerated. There was no point imagining what the Schweini of old might have done. We were dealing with the present and he was fundamentally not fit to fulfil the role required of him.

So Mourinho was right immediately to sideline him. Brutal, unyielding, emotion-free, maybe. But right. And Schweinsteiger repaid that brutality in the most dignified manner possible. His inner torment may have been revealed by his brother’s anguished tweet about a lack of respect, but the man himself was magnificent in his response. Saying he was always available, always willing, and retaining his enthusiasm for the collective.

As in everything he did, the German’s departure was a model of how to behave. Now he is on his way, linked forever in the minds of United followers with just two words: if only.