‘It can be quite toxic… not healthy' – Shaw gives brutal verdict on Man Utd's failings but backs Amorim's tough stance

The Sun

3 days ago

LUKE Shaw has backed Ruben Amorim's hardline stance - after branding the United dressing room 'toxic' and full of 'stragglers' in recent seasons.
England defender Shaw insisted he had no regrets after slamming the efforts of last season following United's Europa League Final defeat by Spurs.
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Since then, Amorim has banished the five-man 'Bomb Squad' of Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, Alejandro Garnacho, Antony and Tyrrell Malacia, although last week offered an olive branch if any of the remaining quartet are not sold by the end of the window.
And in a brutal and honest indictment of United's failings, Shaw, the longest serving player at the club and entering his 12th Old Trafford season, laid it on the line.
He said: 'It's not hard to see from the outside what it's been like.
'A lot of the time I've been here over the last few years it's been extremely negative.
'It can be quite toxic, the environment, it's not healthy at all.'
Shaw, 30, added: 'As players, especially the more experienced ones, we need to be demanding more on a day-in, day-out basis.
'The levels in training, keeping the times of when we're doing this and doing that, making sure no one's coming late or anything - we need to just all up the level of demands.
'That's what Ruben definitely brings in, those demands, especially the mentality.
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'The mentality is a big thing on his lips, really. He talks a lot about it.
'In training. Ruben demands 100 per cent. That's it and he doesn't want anything less.
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'If someone's doing 85-90 per cent, it's not enough for him.
'So, especially this year, if you're not doing the right things, I feel like you won't play.
'And he's not bothered. You've seen what he's done in the past eight months with different players and things like that.
'He doesn't care who the player is. If he's not following what he wants, then that's how it should be, and rightly so.
'Whatever the manager wants, us as players we have to be delivering that. So, yes, we're fully behind that.'
Shaw insisted it was time for every United player to be 'open and honest' about last season's shortcomings.
He said: 'None of us were good enough. I just don't really know what more to say about that.
'Losing the final especially after the season that we went through was even harder to take and my head was a bit more hot than usual.
'I'd had such an awful year as well and I was just fully angry about everything. That's why I said what I said.
'But there are no stragglers in this group any more.
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'That's down to Ruben's mentality, his demands. He's extremely tough on the group. He leaves no stone unturned.
'Everyone has to put the team first. He's made that very clear and he's picking players on who he feels will be best for the team and that's his choice.
'The manager has to do that because at the end of the day, he's going to be the one whose job is always on the line.
"He wants to come in and do things his own way and stamp his own authority on the club.
'That's the only way you can do it, especially at Manchester United.
'As players we're fully behind him and fully behind on his ideas and what he wants to implement in the team.
'We feel like a real team. The group is so together and that's something that we need to keep, to make us more of a family and to keep everyone together, driving in the right direction.'