Luke Shaw hits back at José Mourinho after another round of criticism
Luke Shaw has launched a scathing attack on José Mourinho, accusing him of being stuck in the past and obsessed with criticising him.
The England left-back, who is set to start in Tuesday’s Euro 2020 last-16 game with Germany, had a fine game in last week’s victory over the Czech Republic, only for Mourinho to highlight his poor corner-taking, describing his delivery as “dramatically bad.”
Mourinho managed Shaw at Manchester United for two-and-a-bit seasons from 2016 and subjected him to a series of verbal attacks, some of which were in public, with the player saying on Sunday that nobody realises “how bad it was then.” Mourinho’s latest barb was relatively tame but it triggered a response from Shaw, who has plainly had enough. Shaw even said that other England players had asked why Mourinho, who is working as a pundit at the Euros, has such a problem with him.
“He likes some, he doesn’t like others and I fell into the category where he didn’t like me,” Shaw said. “I tried as hard as I could to get back on to his side but it never worked out, no matter what I did.
“There is no hiding that we didn’t get on. I think he was a brilliant manager but, you know, the past is the past. It is time to move on. I am trying to move on but, obviously, he can’t.
“He continuously talks about me, which I find quite strange. Even some of the lads have said: ‘What’s his problem?’ and: ‘Why does he keep talking?’ He just needs to move on. Hopefully he can find his peace with that and finally move on and stop worrying about me. Clearly I am in his head a lot and he clearly thinks about me a lot.”
There is a theory that Mourinho did not forget how Shaw turned down the chance to join him at Chelsea in 2014, when he instead chose United. Mourinho was heavily critical of Shaw at the time, saying: “If we pay to a boy what we were being asked for, we are dead … we would have killed our stability in our dressing room.”
At United, Mourinho said Shaw had played well as a substitute in the 1-1 draw against Everton in April 2017 “but it was his body with my brain – he was in front of me and I was making every decision for him”. After the FA Cup win over Brighton in March 2018, when Mourinho had substituted Shaw at half-time, he said: “Luke – I cannot say more. It is a relation with personality. It is a relation to trust. It is a relation to class.” There were other instances of Mourinho taking issue with Shaw, of loading blame on to him.
Shaw was asked whether he could now laugh off Mourinho’s comments. “Yes, because I don’t think any of you realise the two or three years I had with him and how bad it was then, what it was like then,” he replied. “What he says now is nothing compared to how it used to be. I am being totally honest. I am so past it now. I have grown up a lot.
“The three years I had with him, I learned a lot. I find it easy to ignore him now and even laugh about it. But it’s better just to ignore it and move on with my life. “I don’t really understand it, to be honest. I don’t know why he is still going on and wanting to point at me. I don’t feel like the set pieces were as bad as he was saying. I might have done one in the second half, a corner, that didn’t get over the first man. But that was one out of three. The others … I don’t think were as ‘dramatically bad’ as he says.
“Look, he has got to do his job. He has got his opinion,” Shaw added. “His voice is obviously very big. I am used to him saying negative stuff about me now, so I just pass it by.
“I leave it be, I ignore it. I just focus on what the coaching staff say here, what Gareth [Southgate] says.”
Shaw has thrived at United since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer replaced Mourinho and he has taken his game to another level since last December, which has seen him sweep back into the England team.
“It [Mourinho’s criticisms] can have an effect and the way he was with me … that was him and he had his personal agenda,” the player said. “But everyone I had around me at the club was fully with me 100%, so whatever went on between me and him was our own thing.
“Around the club … they all supported me fully. So I felt the backing from the club. Not the manager at that point but I knew, if time came in, I would be able to outlast him and I have and I can just focus on getting better and improving.”
Shaw admitted that Southgate’s starting of Kieran Trippier, a specialist right-back, ahead of him at left-back in the opening group win over Croatia was “a bit of a surprise.” But he came back in for the second game, the goalless draw against Scotland and, with Ben Chilwell forced to isolate after a Covid breach, he appears to be firmly in possession of the shirt.
“It would feel unbelievable [to beat Germany],” Shaw said. “Not just for us as players but the whole nation. What’s happened in the past [against them] is the past. We want to create our own story.”