Jose Mourinho rejects Bastian Schweinsteiger criticism, hints at Paul Pogba deal

In anticipation of the world-record signing of the Frenchman, who is likely to move from Juventus for a fee of around £100m, Mourinho has been making room in his squad with Schweinsteiger cast into first-team exile.

The eight-time Bundesliga winner and reigning world champion has been told to find a new club and has been training with the youth team and reserves – a situation which has provoked a firestorm of criticism.

Bayern Munich, Schweinsteiger’s former club, have expressed their surprise at his treatment while a Fifpro member, Dejan Stefanovic, said the United boss should be imprisoned.

Mourinho, though, simply said he needed to reduce the numbers in his squad in his press conference ahead of Sunday’s Community Shield at Wembley.

“I think is what is happening in every club in the world which is the manager decides his squad and chooses a certain number of players to face the season and that’s it and I normally like to work with 20 players plus the three goalkeepers which is what I do for 15 years because we have so many players.

"But at the same time we also have so many competitions and especially the Europa League [which] is a competition that changes a lot of the season. You can play 15 matches, you play on the Thursday, you have a big risk, travel a lot,” he said.

“Normally you are going to play the Premier League on the Sunday so I made the decision to be with 23 players plus three goalkeepers which I think is still a lot and I had to make my decisions.”

On the latest developments with Pogba, Mourinho appeared confident that the deal will be completed.

"We have 22 now and we are going to have 23. Paul Pogba is a Juventus player until officially he isn’t.

“We got a young central defender (Eric Bailly) that needs time to be a top one, but he has top potential and we believe a lot in him,” said Mourinho of the club’s work in the transfer market.

“We brought Micki (Henrikh Mkhitaryan) here, a player that we know the quality he has. We got a super striker (Zlatan Ibrahimovic) and we are going to get a very good midfield player, so I am happy with the balance of my squad, I’m happy with the effort that the club has, and is still putting in for us.”

Daniel Rathjen, Eurosport.de: