Luke Shaw now faces serious competition at left-back following the arrival of Alex Telles at Manchester United.
United paid £15.4 million for Porto’s Telles on deadline day, providing Shaw with a much-needed battle to remain a regular in the starting line-up.
Shaw’s inconsistent performances have hurt the Red Devils and after watching him in the 6-1 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will have been delighted to get a deal for Telles completed one day later.
A clip of the former Southampton defender ignoring David de Gea’s pleas not to vacate his position in front of United’s goal before Son Heung-min made it 4-1 typified the type of errors that Shaw has been prone to making during his United career.
And it proved Jose Mourinho right in his assessment of Shaw in 2017.
Mourinho was right about Shaw
Mourinho was often harsh on Shaw during his time in charge at Old Trafford, and his comments about the left-back after a league game against Everton were eye-opening.
But United fans have come to think that the Portuguese coach was right all along.
“He had a good performance, but it was his body with my brain,” Mourinho said three years ago.
"He was in front of me and I was making every decision for him.
"The communication was possible because we were very close. I was thinking for him, when to close inside, when to open, when to press the opponent, I was making every decision for him."
Fast forward to 2019 and Mourinho took another dig at Shaw by suggesting that Harry Maguire would need to cover the left-back “a lot of times” during United’s defensive situations.
“When a player is attracted to the inside and then Maguire is the one who has to jump on the outside, the United midfielders are not closing the space in the box,” Mourinho said during an appearance on Sky Sports, per the Metro.
“When Maguire is attracted to cover Luke Shaw, and he has to learn that he has to do this a lot of times, during the season he will learn he needs to do that.”
Was Mourinho wrong? United fans don't think so...
