Luke Shaw plays down Premier League title chances for Manchester United
According to the quotes at The Athletic (subscription required), Manchester United defender Luke Shaw has played down the chances of the Red Devils being in the Premier League title race this season.
United won the Manchester derby at Old Trafford on Saturday to find themselves just one point behind their city rivals and defending champions. League leaders Arsenal are now eight clear after their win in the north London derby.
Erik ten Hag’s men are playing some excellent football with a team spirit of a high order. Showing the class to come back from a goal down against a team like City is sumptuous stuff.
But, Shaw, who himself has been in great form recently, played down the talks of the team being in the title race. Here’s what he said (The Athletic):
“It’s too early to think about that. Right now as a team we have make sure we have the right consistency in performances and results.
“It’s always about winning. If you play well or not you need to be winning, and recently we’ve been doing that. We’ve not been playing our best but we’ve still been winning games.
“We’re still in four competitions. We’re Manchester United, we have to aim high, and of course we want to win all four but whether that happens or not is down to us, it’s down to the way we act, the way we rest and get ready for the next game.”
United face a potentially tricky game away at Crystal Palace on Wednesday. If the talks of a title race are to be maintained, they would need to follow up a big win against City with the same result against Palace.
Shaw is right that we are still in all four competitions. How long can that be sustained will be interesting to see. Nevertheless, compared to the start of this season, things are looking better and more consistent under ten Hag.
The Red Devils have signed Wout Weghorst on loan for the rest of this campaign to bolster the forward line. If we do not get another top-class attacker in before the end of this window, it would be a tough ask to maintain this high level of form.
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As of now, we are dependent on the likes of Marcus Rashford, Casemiro and Bruno Fernandes to produce the goods in almost every game. For sustaining a potential title race and staying in the cups, a better squad depth would be required