Luke Shaw has praised Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag for instilling a new precedent at the club: perform well on the pitch or lose your place.
Shaw admitted that the situation is vastly different to that of different managers’ philosophies. Namely under Ole Gunnar Solskjear, who regularly deployed the same starting eleven regardless of performances or results.
This season, Shaw has been used in rotation with summer signing Tyrell Malacia. He started the first two games of the season that saw United concede six goals in total. A number of players were then consequently dropped; Shaw, Harry Maguire and Cristiano Ronaldo all fell to the bench as Ten Hag opted for a new-look United team.
He has since featured for United and displayed some impressive performances.
When reflecting on falling out of favour under Ten Hag, he said: “He’s keeping everyone on their toes. He makes sure that everyone is 100 per cent every day. If you’re not at it then you won’t play. That’s a positive thing.”
Regarding his performances at the beginning of the season, he admitted (via Daily Mail): “To be honest I didn’t really need him to say anything to me. I knew. I knew the first two games were nowhere near good enough.
“I completely understood that it was my time to come out of the team. The results were bad, my performances were not good enough. I just had to keep training hard every day so the manager could see I was training hard.
“I was just waiting for my opportunity and had to bide my time because the team were doing well and we were winning. You can’t moan.”
