José Mourinho’s control at Manchester United was illustrated in his stark declaration that Luke Shaw is not currently good enough to merit a squad place for Wednesday’s Europa League game at St-Étienne which, it should be remembered, is practically dead as a contest.
Shaw has been dropped for the past five outings and failed to be a replacement in four of those. Wednesday night’s last-32 second leg with Christophe Galtier’s side will stretch this unwanted statistic to five. Mourinho left the defender behind in Manchester despite United holding a 3-0 advantage over St-Étienne and the manager also decided that Matteo Darmian, who can operate at left-back as well, was not required to travel either.
After Wednesday’s encounter, Mourinho’s side next play in Sunday’s EFL Cup final against Southampton, while they are also into the FA Cup sixth-round and are only four points behind Manchester City in the Premier League’s second place. All of this indicates how Mourinho is exerting his influence, and the dismissal of Shaw is further evidence of his strength.
His reasoning behind omitting Shaw, who joined United in June 2014 for a fee in excess of £27m and suffered a double fracture in a match at PSV Eindhoven in September 2015, is unapologetic. “Because I am playing with Daley Blind, with Marcos Rojo, with Matteo Darmian and all of them are playing the way I like a full-back to play,” Mourinho said on Tuesday. “Luke has to wait for his chance and work better knowing that I give nothing for free. When I give something to the players it’s expensive for them, they have to work really hard every day. They have to play well so he has to wait.”
Mourinho paused when asked if Shaw has the requirements to be his sort of left-back. “In this moment he is behind the others,” he said. “Potentially he has many things that I like but potential is one thing and another is on the pitch to express all the qualities that I like a player to express. He has to keep working like [Henrikh] Mkhitaryan for a long time.”
Mkhitaryan failed to force his way into United’s starting XI at the start of the season before being finally selected for the Manchester derby in September, after which he was dropped until December. Since then he has been a first-choice.
The glass half-full reading of this should allow Shaw to draw inspiration. The half-empty view is that he appears further away from the team than Mkhitaryan ever was – the latter was at least involved in United’s matchday squads at the time.
Anthony Martial is another whose future has been shaky under Mourinho. Like Mkhitaryan he has twice been dropped and twice fought his way back. Earlier in the season the Frenchman’s agent was speaking publicly of a temporary move away, yet now Martial is adamant where his future lies.
“I love this club, I love Manchester United, I love the Manchester United fans. They give me a lot of joy and I really enjoy having them backing me,” he said on his return to France. “I try to be as good as possible to make them happy, to satisfy them. What I want is to stay at this club for as long as possible.”
Martial was careful to brush off the issue of why his form has not been as good as last season’s. “It is just because last year I played a lot, I had the possibility to play back-to-back games. Now I enjoy playing and we have to wait,” he said.
Mourinho now looks and sounds like the natural successor to Sir Alex Ferguson, who retired in 2013.
Asked if he may ever return to manage Real Madrid again, the Portuguese said: “I want to win tomorrow. I don’t want to win the Europa League or Premier League or anything else, I want to win tomorrow.
“I have a difficult opponent that we got a very good result [against, with a Zlatan Ibrahimovic hat-trick] in the first match. The result could be different instead of 3‑0 and could have been 2-1 … we have a job to finish tomorrow.
“Tomorrow 9pm I want to win thefinal on Sunday. Sunday 7pm I want to win against Bournemouth in the Premier League. That’s the way I think all the time, and have all my career. I have a contract for two more years with Manchester United and, unless Manchester United wants me to leave, I don’t leave because I love to work for this club. To leave [it] must be my board to tell me that.”
For the foreseeable future, there is scant prospect of this.
St-Étienne (probable, 4-2-3-1) Ruffier; Malcuit, Perrin, Theophile-Catherine, Pogba; Pajot, Veretout; Intima, Saivet, Monnet-Paquet; Hamouma. Subs from: Moulin, Lacroix, Roux, Selnaes, Lemoine, Beric, Pierre-Gabriel, Guendouz, Mbengue, Dabo, Soderlund
Manchester Unied (probable, 4-2-3-1) Romero; Young, Smalling, Bailly, Blind; Fellaini, Carrick; Lingard, Mkhitaryan, Martial; Rashford.
Subs from: O’Hara, Rojo, De Gea, Fosu-Mensah, Valencia, Schweinsteiger, Mata, Ibrahimovic, Pogba.
Suspended Ander Herrera (one game)
Referee D Aytekin (Ger)
