What has caused the decline of Manchester United’s World Cup winning hero?

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The arrival of Bastian Schweinsteiger at Manchester United was supposed to be a huge success. After all, Manchester United were signing a 30-year-old “German football maestro” who has won the Bundesliga eight times in over 500 appearances in his 13 years at Bayern Munich, the Champions League once, and was just fresh off Germany’s World Cup triumph.

The 9m Euro wage on three-year-deal seemed to be an excellent investment for United, who, under Louis van Gaal, would famously go on to spend over 250 million pounds on transfers in an effort to reclaim the club’s top spot in Europe. The World Cup winner’s arrival added the genuine touch of class that the Red Devils have lacked in central midfield since Paul Scholes retired.

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The initial returns on that investment seemed to be excellent, as shirt sales were thriving and more importantly United were top of the Premier League after seven games in early October with five wins, one draw and one loss, with 12 goals for and five against.

The team, given the brutal season Schweinsteiger was coming off (Bundesliga, UCL final, World Cup final), rightfully eased the German midfielder into the flow, limiting his minutes by bringing him off the bench and/or subbing him for all five of the August matches.

“We have made progression in the maturity of the team, the balance of the team and that’s also why Bastian Schweinsteiger is here.” manager LVG said in September, and the German’s performance in the 3-1 United win over Liverpool was ample support, as he racked up 74 successful passes in a dominant effort.

Some newspapers, such as the Metro were calling him “the signing of the summer”. 3 goal wins over Ipswich and Sunderland continued, and while Schweinsteiger did not score or assist any goals, the team was performing well.

Turning into October, the red flags and warning signs started to appear. United’s Champions League game against, Wolfsburg, ended in a 2-1 win however they were far from impressive. Wolfsburg came out and took the game to United with impressive passing on goals like this from Daniel Caligiuri:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbwKWnDgsTI

They outplayed United for most of the game, dominating midfield, and if it wasn’t for Andre Schürrle’s struggles to finish they could have won the match. Schweinsteiger was subbed out for Phil Jones on 72 minutes in a subdued performance.

In the following game, Arsenal ran amok on United, as Schweinsteiger and co could not deal with the pace of Özil, Sanchez and Walcott in a 3-0 thrashing. United rebounded with a 3-0 win over Everton, but followed it up with a lackluster 1-1 draw against CSKA, where Van Gaal decided to replace the German with Fellaini after just 45 minutes.

He was better in consecutive draws against  City (where he lead his team with 78 passes) and Crystal Palace, but failed to play the full 90 minutes in either of those games.

Schweinsteiger’s start to November was positive, 97 passes vs CSKA (1-0 win), 98 an 115 touches vs WBA (2-0 win). as well as playing the full ninety minutes on both occasions. Nonetheless, the international break (where he played in a 2-0 loss to France for Germany) was followed by a disappointing performance against Watford.

In what would be United’s final win of 2015, the German international was extremely poor, managing just 64 passes, with an accuracy of 64% accuracy – a statistic well below his usual 90%, 90- 100 pass averages.

His first and only goal came in the 1:1 draw against Leicester City, emerging victorious from the Sumo match against the Japanese Shinji Okazaki (who, to be fair was giving away 7cms and 5kgs to the German) on a corner before heading the ball home from close range. This was perhaps, Bastian’s best game for United.

Unfortunately, the fun would end for him, in December, as an average performance and 72 minutes vs West Ham would be followed by his worst game of the season in the 3-2 thriller lost to VFL Wolfsburg. Numbers-wise, it did not look so bad, as he had 50 passes with 90% accuracy and 2 shots. However, numbers do occasionally lie, as they did in this case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN-A2vx0X5A

It was the second goal that really hurt: Wolfsburg Julian Draxler completely eviscerates Schweinsteiger, who seems rooted to the spot. Yet again, pace and quick movement seemed to completely bewilder the German playmaker on defense, as Wolfsburg quartet of Draxler, Max Kruse, Max Arnold and  Vierinha ran him ragged.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqh_DTqBu6Y

In the last two games during the Christmas period, the mixed performance continued by Schweinsteiger. The strangely excellent goalless draw vs Chelsea (which really should have been like 3-3, if not for De Gea’s saves and the post saving Courtois twice), where he put in a typical workmanlike shift with over 100 touches and 90% accuracy, but offered very little going forward.

In the 2-1 win over Swansea to kick off the new year, it was Schweinsteiger’s tackle that lead to Martial’s opening goal, perhaps his only notable contribution to defense in this season. He also had five aerial challenges that he won (versus his average of two per game), another good sign for United.

On the other hand, he was uncharacteristically sloppy in possession, only ranking 8th on his own team with 73 touches and 81% accuracy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQloD_Cto6A

So, the total tally, courtesy of Whoscored.com, so far for the highly anticipated first season of Bastian Schweinsteiger is as follows: 23 appearances (17 EPL + 6 UCL) 1609 minutes (roughly 18 full games) one goal and no assists. 

For comparison, his history says, that in 26 games last season for Bayern he had five goals and eight assists. In 2013-14 those numbers in 30 games were seven goals and four assists.

That is clearly a very different player, one who, unfortunately for United fans offers very little going forward.

But it’s the same guy, right? Well, he appears to be the same by some numbers:

His passing stats appear to be similar on the surface, 87% accuracy overall, with 58 accurate short passes to eight inaccurate in the Premier League this year on average/game, to 55 and six in the Bundesliga last year, as well as a three to two ratio of accurate Long balls to inaccurate long balls versus a 4 to 3 ratio this year.

The gigantic difference is in Key passes and meaningful possession, as last year Schweinsteiger averaged 1.6 key passes to only 0.5 this year, despite the avg. passes (67 to 62) and accuracy remaining the same (87.7% to 86%).

He is also losing possession at an alarming rate, 4 times worse than last year, as he has lost possession on average / game 0.4 times last year to 2 times per game this year with unsuccesful touches 0.4 to 1.5.

To put that into context, using Squawka’s rankings of midfielders in the EPL this season, Schweisteiger ranks a whopping 49th out 103 qualified players (min 13 games played) in the close company of Villa’s Carlos Sanchez, Liverpool’s Lucas Leiva, or Leicester City’s Danny Drinkwater.

I’m reasonably certain, that both Louis van Gaal and United fans have expected a lot more from Schweinsteiger. Twisting the proverbial knife into United fans, we can compare Schweini to the former United academy product, the 25 year old Drinkwater (who, despite being at the academy since the age of nine has been loaned out six times) and see the results.

United fans might want to put sharp objects at a reasonable distance from themselves! Sure, Schweinsteiger has more passes 1033 to 914, better accuracy 86 to 79%,  but in terms of meaningful passes, Drinkwater crushes him, with 22 key passes to the German’s eight and 25 chances created to eight. Oh by the way, he has three assists, three more than Schweinsteiger.

Defensively, they both have 23 interceptions, but Danny has 32 won tackles versus Bastian’s 23 and is better in the air (18 to 15 in aerial duels won). The Leicester man also bests the German in clearances 29 to 14 and blocks eight to three. He is five and a half years younger and has a market value 5.5 times less than Schweinsteiger (3 mil to 18 mil) according to Transfermarkt.

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Disappointment is the one word summary of the first half season of Schweinsteiger’s in the English Premier League, as he isn’t really an impact player on the pitch.

Sure, he is an excellent passer, very accurate and meticulous, but as I’ve demonstrated above, those passes are rarely meaningful.

Defensively, he has lost several steps and seems incapable of dealing with top level speed and quality, struggling against counterattacking teams like Arsenal, or Wolfsburg.

If the Premier League and football had a salary cap and draft system like most of American sports, I would be calling out the manager/team for wasting its limited resources on a decent, over the hill midfielder.

However, since this is not the case and United are free and willing to spend their money. Lets just say that the signing of Bastian Schweinsteiger has so far been a relatively inexpensive misstep.

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