UNITED SPECIAL Things Luke good as Reds defender is back in fold
LUKE Shaw has been one of the positives of United’s season so far and the defender has revealed how a conversation with Jose Mourinho gave him the confidence to begin the campaign in flying form.
Shaw scored his first professional goal in the opening game against Leicester, and has been rewarded for his performances with a call-up to Gareth Southgate’s latest England squad.
The left-back was out for a year with a broken leg between September 2015 and August 2016, but he struggled to displace Ashley Young in the United side when he returned last season, and Mourinho often criticised Shaw in public.
Now, though, Shaw is back in the first-team picture and is ahead of Young for both club and country.
Speaking ahead of England’s fixture against Spain on Saturday, Shaw said he has matured over what he called an ‘unfortunate’ period.
“I’ve had to fight very hard. It’s been an unfortunate three years but that’s in the past now and I’m looking forward,” he said.
“I feel really good, I’m in great shape and my confidence is back. Everything that happened is all in the past now, I’m focusing on improving myself as a person and as a player. It’s the start of a new me this season.”
Shaw then spoke about the role Mourinho has played over the last two seasons.
He said: “It’s been a tough two years but mentally it’s made me stronger and made me want to prove to him that I can do what sometimes, in the last couple of seasons, he said I couldn’t.
“I think at times he got frustrated with me because he knew I could do better. Maybe he was right but I don’t want to keep focusing on that.
“We had a chat before the season and he said he wanted me to stay. That motivated me a lot.” THE past few months have not been all bad for Jose Mourinho.
In a summer where he has been left visibly frustrated following the club’s failure to sign another centreback or forward, the United boss did get his way when it came to Marouane Fellaini staying put.
The Belgian, of all people, teased about the decision before finally signing a new contract just two days before officially becoming a free agent.
Following the signings of Fred, Diogo Dalot and Lee Grant, Fellaini put pen to paper on new terms – and that was United’s summer business effectively done and dusted.
And hanging on to Fellaini was high up on Mourinho’s list of priorities.
Few players have left a mark on the 55-year-old in such a short space of time. Within hours of the manager’s unveiling at Old Trafford in the summer of 2016, he messaged the Belgian, telling him he would be part of his plans.
And he has been a man of his word.
Fellaini has played under three managers at United, but few have shown the faith in him Mourinho has.
The Portuguese even went as far as to say it would be easier for Galatasaray to appoint him than sign Fellaini last summer. Can you think of a player he has ever spoken of like that before?
Given how Fellaini only went on to make seven starts in an injurydisrupted campaign last season, that shows you the value Mourinho places on just having him around.
The worry is, though, that when United have run out of ideas up front, too often they turn to Fellaini as a Plan B.
That happened after the hour mark against both Spurs and Brighton and the 30-year-old was ineffective on both occasions.
So Mourinho’s decision to start Fellaini against Burnley on Sunday raised a few eyebrows. Were United about to go route one from the start at Turf Moor? But rather than playing on Romelu Lukaku’s shoulder, Fellaini instead lined up as United’s deepest midfielder. At times, he even dropped into the back line to form a three-man defence. Fellaini completed 100 per cent of his tackles, won seven aerial duels and made six clearances in a game made for him against Burnley’s giants. Crucially, he also gave United’s leaky defence that protection it needed as he covered Nemanja Matic. It meant, in effect, Mourinho had four players - Fellaini, Nemanja Matic, Victor Lindelof and Chris Smalling - whose job was solely to defend and break up Burnley’s counters. That allowed United’s forwards to focus on what they do best and also freed up full-backs Luke Shaw and Antonio Valenica to bomb forward. It all sounds so simple, but Fellaini has been a stabiliser at a time when United have seriously lacked cohesion at the back. Who saw that coming? Ciaran Kelly