Shaw’s situation a shame, but he must take blame

Luke Shaw was discussing why he had not been able to “show what I could properly do” during the first year of his Manchester United career when he was interviewed by The Guardian back in August.

“It was my first couple of weeks and being so young it was difficult. I picked up an injury, I didn’t get a full pre-season, then I was out for four weeks. Loads of things.”

Fair enough.

“Maybe I took it a little bit easy over my time off after the World Cup. Maybe I didn’t think it was going to be as hard and as quick as it was.”

Ah.

If Jose Mourinho is to be believed, it seems Shaw has yet to learn his lesson, even two and a half years later. The boss appears to have given up hope of the left-back catching on in time to save his United prospects, and those more concerned for the player could be forgiven for questioning whether the penny will drop before his prodigious talent goes unfulfilled forever.

Nobody doubts the ability and potential Shaw possesses. Before Mourinho, now exasperated at trying every other approach, decided that tough love was the only motivational technique left available to him, the United manager tried to cajole his full-back into pulling his finger out.

“I think the one that should be in a couple of years the best of all – because potentially he should have all the conditions to be the best of all – is Luke Shaw,” said the manager last month before the defender was a surprise selection to face Bournemouth.

“By age, by physicality, by intensity, aggressiveness going forward, he should be the best. But to be the best you need to work hard. It’s what he’s trying to do.”

Shaw appears not to be trying hard enough. And though the 21-year-old must take the largest portion of the blame for wasting that talent so far, there are many more parties culpable in what is turning out to be a depressingly familiar story.

For a long time prior to moving to Old Trafford in 2014, Shaw was repeatedly told that the England left-back slot was his for as long as he fancied it. His selection at 18 for the World Cup – the one after which Shaw admits he took it too easy – came at the expense of Ashley Cole, one of the country’s best-ever left-backs, and at a time when he had the choice of replacing Cole at Chelsea or moving to Manchester United.

It would take an incredibly single-minded, focused teenager to ignore all the hype and Shaw is hardly the first young player to ease off after being hailed as the future of English football. You can barely move around the periphery of Gareth Southgate’s squad for prodigious-but-unfulfilled potential. Ross Barkley and Jack Wilshere continue to test the patience of many, while injuries and the weight of expectation have been too much for Jack Rodwell.

Many of Mourinho’s critics have claimed the manager’s treatment of Shaw is typical of his inability – or refusal – to nurture young talent. But Louis van Gaal, Roy Hodgson and former Southampton manager Mauricio Pochettino all voiced similar concerns. After Van Gaal had suggested Shaw’s fitness was sub-standard shortly after signing him, the ex-England boss said: “I think when Van Gaal talks to Pochettino, Pochettino will say to him: ‘What you were saying to Luke Shaw and what you’ve been saying about him, is what I was actually saying to him.”

But what is everyone else telling Shaw? His team-mates, though apparently supportive in the wake of Mourinho’s public criticism after the defeat at Watford in September, are understood to have warned him that he is risking his United career, but similar interventions failed to provoke Shaw’s mate, Memphis Depay, to get his act together.

Shaw seems to be enjoying life off the pitch far more than on it, though playing the Vincent Chase role in the Cheshire version of Entourage is unlikely to be helping his career prospects.

“I’m loving it,” Shaw told The Guardian. “I live with my best friends from school, four of us. Some people might think we’re always partying but it isn’t a party house. These are my best friends – I’ve known one since we were eight – and they want the best out of me.”

So does Mourinho but, as the situation stands, the manager is certainly not seeing it.

Shaw’s only mitigation is the potentially career-ending injury he sustained at the start of his second season at Old Trafford, just when he seemed to have found his groove.

A double-leg break would test the character of the most strong-willed, but now Shaw is over that injury, physically at least, he should be relishing the opportunity ahead of him to rebuild his career. United did not recruit a left-back, choosing to wait for Shaw instead. He did not seize that chance; Mourinho has opted to play Ashley Young, Matteo Darmian, Marcos Rojo and Daley Blind – a winger, a right-back, a centre-half and a midfielder – in his place.

Mourinho’s patience is dangling by a thread that won’t hold until the summer. Perhaps Shaw’s last chance has passed already, but the manager has proved already at United that he is willing to offer further opportunities to players who take his criticism constructively.

Shaw is reportedly in the squad for Tuesday’s meeting with Everton after clear-the-air talks on Monday, but one or two appearances are unlikely to further the defender’s cause. Shaw, like his captain Wayne Rooney, is not the type of specimen who can come into the side after a period of inactivity and perform like he has never been away. He needs a run of matches to find his sharpness and United cannot accommodate the left-back while he searches for his edge.

If indeed Shaw is finished at United, what next? The defender may be sitting comfortably, believing his reputation as one of the country’s golden boys will see him right. Tottenham is a convenient transfer link. But would Pochettino be willing to swap Danny Rose for a player who has failed to disprove what doubts he may have held three years ago?

Any move from United is almost certain to be a step down. And the evidence so far suggests Shaw might not have the stomach to fight his way back up.

Ian Watson