MANCHESTER UNITED DEFENDER Luke Shaw pulled no punches in rating his side’s 3-1 defeat at the hands of West Ham, describing the performance as “horrendous” while shifting the blame from manager Jose Mourinho.
Mourinho has seen the Red Devils lose three games in seven so far in the Premier League, their worst start for nearly 30 years.
That rotten run of form, as well as a highly public ‘feud’ with Paul Pogba, threatens to end the Portuguese’s tenure at Old Trafford just months into his third season.
But Shaw insists that it is the players, not the boss, who should bear the brunt of criticism.
“We have to look at ourselves as players. We’re the ones who go on the pitch. The manager isn’t on the pitch, is he?” he said to reporters.
“If you want the truth, I think it was honestly horrendous. We didn’t look like a team 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.”
Shaw also admitted that United received a furious team talk from Mourinho at half-time, which failed to turn the course of the game.
“Obviously at half-time there were a few words and I think it was needed,” he said. “It was ‘wake up’ and words that he’s said before: we need to be moving, we need to concentrate more, we need to want the ball, we need to be playing.
“That didn’t happen. It’s disappointing and a very, very bad day for us. 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.
“That shouldn’t be happening. Games like this we should be dominating, creating chances, showing people why we deserve to play for Man United and that didn’t happen. It was very poor from us. Very, very poor.”
Currently adrift in 10th, nine points behind joint Premier League leaders Manchester City and Liverpool, United will hope to banish their domestic blues — at least temporarily — on Tuesday when they host Valencia in the Champions League.
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