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By- Joe.
(Luke Shaw, Manchester United)
It's the 2013/14 season, and a seventeen-year-old English left-back named Luke Shaw is enjoying his second full season with Southampton FC, and as the season approaches a close, a tempting offer of £30m comes in for Shaw from Manchester United. The Saints accepting the deal made Shaw the most expensive teenager in footballing history, taking the title away from Lucas Moura, who had made his move from Sau Paulo to PSG in 2013. Now, it’s the 2017/18 season, and Shaw is playing second-fiddle to Ashley Young at left-back in a cautious Mourinho side, and it has left people wondering: "What has happened to the young full-back?"
Shaw's debut season for the Red Devils was full of ups and downs, with his debut coming in the last 45 minutes of United's 7-0 win over LA Galaxy during pre-season. However, before the start of the season, his injury prone nature came to show, suffering a hamstring injury that kept him out for a month. He then made his return against West Ham, where he played the full 90 minutes, helping United to a 2-1 win. Solid performances followed, and Shaw was put on the 40-man-shortlist for the European Golden Boy award.
With his first full competitive debut for United coming against West Ham in February 2015, he was in the starting line-up again for the Red Devils in their second clash of the season against the Hammers. Shaw had a game to forget as he was sent off after receiving a second yellow card, and United couldn't come up with the goods, subsequently being held to a 1-1 draw against West Ham. After a poor performance against West Ham, it took a while for the boss to trust him enough to put him in the starting line-up again, but his return came against Chelsea, where United were outperformed, and the Blues came away with a 1-0 win. Despite this, Shaw's performance was praised by then-captain, Wayne Rooney.
The 2015/16 season looked like the season where Luke Shaw could really make a big impact in the United side. He started every game in the Premier League & Champions League, but on the 15th of September 2015, he was caught by Hector Moreno in a late challenge in PSV's corner flag area, and he suffered a double leg fracture. Shaw was given oxygen and treated by 9 medical staff before being stretchered off the pitch and taken to hospital. He was expected to be out for at least 6 months and eventually returned to training on the 4th of April 2016. Unfortunately, nothing was the same from there.
Shaw had to wait until the 7th of October 2016 to make his competitive return for United after the injury, and was part of the squad that beat Leicester City 2-1 to lift the 2016 FA Community Shield. But by this time, Jose Mourinho had joined Manchester United as manager, and with him favouring a tight system with fullbacks that don’t bomb forward like Shaw does so often, he quickly fell out of favour, with players such as Marcos Rojo, Daley Blind, Matteo Darmian, and more recently, Ashley Young, with their more defensive nature fitting Mourinho's system perfectly.
And now we're here, Shaw is rotting away on the United bench, and oftentimes, doesn't even make the bench. Reports appear to be coming out that he will reject transfer approaches from a number of Turkish clubs to try and prove himself at United, but the question everybody is asking is, "should he just move on?"