Luke Shaw, Manchester United’s first choice left back and the team’s player of the season two years ago, has called on his club to reinforce the roster. He joined manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in lamenting the lack of squad depth after a very surprising home loss to Crystal Palace yesterday.
“We have a very good group, but personally I think we need more players to strengthen the squad,” Shaw said. “It can give us a boost. When you look around at how other teams are strengthening their teams, then we must also do it to keep up with the others.”
Heading into the match, Solskjaer also admitted that the summer transfer window has not gone according to their plans. The only player who did score for United yesterday, in a match where they were heavily favored to win, was their lone new acquisition: midfielder Donny van De Beek, who came over from Ajax.
The Jadon Sancho to United saga was the height of tedium, and now that narrative seems dead on arrival, so what is the next move? Reportedly, they are currently in talks to sign Porto left back Alex Telles. So things are so bad that even the guy who might see his position contested, via the potential next signing, is calling for more new arrivals.
Luke Shaw saw another reason for his side’s dreadful showing on Saturday- the disjointed and abbreviated preseason. Both Manchester clubs, due to their deep runs in European tournaments, were given an extra week to prepare for the season by starting in week two instead of week one.
However, international matches were staged during the preseason, and United had a lot of players away on duty for their countries. They just didn’t have time to get everyone together, and get them all on the same page.
“Personally from my point of view the preseason that we’ve had is not the correct way it should have been, we’ve had a week all together,” Shaw added.
“We haven’t been able to prepare in the way that we wanted and that’s not an excuse because we have the quality of players to be able to win games like this but we weren’t up to it and we’ve been punished.
“It’s the start of a new season, we should have been fresh.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.