Sidney Sladen
Manchester United left-back Luke Shaw was surprisingly picked in the England squad for the games against Germany and Lithuania and the inclusion couldn’t have come at a better time as he has been struggling to make his way into the United first team.
However, England manager Gareth Southgate has advised Luke Shaw to rise to the challenge of being out of the Manchester United first team and prove himself to manager Jose Mourinho. The Manchester United boss has regularly overlooked the 21-year-old left-back since his return to fitness in mid-January.
Southgate also admitted that he selected Shaw for the squads against Germany and Lithuania largely because the player needs ‘a boost’.
Luke Shaw was largely touted as the long-term left-back of the historic Manchester club and became the most expensive teenager when he arrived at Old Trafford. Things have gone out of control since his horrific leg break injury and he has not been able to nail down a place in the playing XI.
Southgate said of the former Southampton man’s United issues:
“That’s for him and his club to deal with. He has got a challenge now to get himself into the team there. I think Luke’s sole focus has got to be how can he get himself back in the team if he is not in the team. There’s a challenge for every player. We want competition for places, we have got competition for places in every area of the field.”
He added: If you are at a club like Manchester United, that’s going to be the same so as an individual how are you going to do everything you can to get back into the side? People say that managers pick teams, but really players do because of the way they train, the way that they are, the way they play. They make your decisions as a manager so that is the challenge Luke has at the moment.”
Southgate also said that he would rather have characters in his team than those playing regular football for their clubs.
He continued: “In an ideal world, you have all your players playing and playing at the highest possible level and playing in Europe and everything else. But we have got to be open-minded because we want the right characters through the door and there are moments when a player isn’t playing for his club, like with Luke (Shaw), where you think this might just give him a bit of a lift, a boost. I don’t want to have a hard and fast rule because I might break that in the future at some point.”
Luke Shaw would surely be feeling confident after being included in the England squad and it would be fair to expect the young Englishman to feel motivated to convince Jose Mourinho that he is worthy of a place in the Manchester United XI. It would be rather disappointing if Shaw doesn’t make the grade at Manchester United.
