From a Manchester United perspective, afternoons don’t come much worse.
United fell to a 3-1 defeat to West Ham on Saturday, leaving the Red Devils in 10th place in the Premier League table.
The Hammers fully deserved the result, with their revival continuing following a shaky start to the season, while Jose Mourinho’s side seem to be going in the opposite direction.
United full-back Luke Shaw didn’t shy away from his share of the blame in United’s third defeat in seven league games. His comments have been reported widely since late on Sunday and have spread like wildfire across social media and various news platforms.
“If you want the truth, I think it was honestly horrendous,” Shaw said. “We didn’t look like a team today that was going to beat West Ham. I think individually and as a team we were awful.”
“That’s not good enough. It’s hard to take and we’re sorry to the fans for what they saw today. It was not good enough from a Man United team with all the talent we have.”
While Mourinho has criticised the officials for two of the goals conceded by his team, there was only one team that looked like winning from kick-off.
And Shaw thinks that simply shouldn’t be happening.
“From the first minute, you could see we weren’t winning the second balls and our duels. It’s hard to take. It just wasn’t good enough from us today. That shouldn’t be happening,” he added.
“Games like this we should be dominating, creating chances, showing people why we deserve to play for Man United and that didn’t happen today. It was very poor from us. Very, very poor.”
It’s claimed that Mourinho’s days at Old Trafford are numbered and the Portuguese is currently favourite to be the next Premier League manager sacked.
But Shaw, whose past issues with his manager have been well-publicised, claims that Mourinho isn’t solely to blame for the team’s shortcomings.
“We have to look at ourselves as players. We’re the ones who go on the pitch,” said Shaw. “The manager isn’t on the pitch is he? He’s there to put a team out and put a team out that he thinks can win the game.
“You look at our team today and we had a very strong team. No excuses. As players, we weren’t good enough.”
Luke Shaw stepping up with Roy Keane (circa 2005) comments.
