LUKE SHAW has called on the Manchester United board to buy more players in the wake of their 3-1 defeat to Crystal Palace.
A jaded-looking United have added only Donny van de Beek who came on to score on his debut on Saturday.
Luke Shaw called on the Manchester United board to sign more players before transfer deadline dayCredit: Getty Images – Getty
And left-back Shaw believes they are falling further behind their rivals by not strengthening further.
Shaw said: “We are a very good group, but personally I think we need more players to strengthen the squad.
“It can give us a boost. When you look around at how other teams are strengthening their teams, then we must also do it to keep up with the others.”
Shaw also revealed there was a no-holds-barred post-match inquest after Manchester United slumped to an opening-game defeat.
United were woeful and they knew it and Shaw says they have to use the midweek EFL Cup game away to Luton to do just that.
Shaw, 25, added: “A lot of things were said after the game and we need to put it to bed.
“Possibly everything went wrong.
“We need to be very disappointed because we should be but forget about it and move on.
United lacked energy and were sluggish during the home defeat against Crystal PalaceCredit: Reuters
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“We’ve got a big game on Tuesday, we need to win that and pick up momentum again. At the start of the season it’s always key to how the season will go ahead.”
Shaw pointed to United’s lack of pre-season preparation for a reason they were so “sluggish”.
It had only been 34 days since they had lost in the semi-finals of the Europa League to Sevilla.
Shaw said: “Personally from my point of view the pre-season that we’ve had altogether is not the correct way it should have been.
“On my first day back training you could have probably counted on one hand the number of people who were training.
“We have only been back a week all together. Look at teams who have been together a while, training, playing games.
“I think Palace have played quite a few more games than us and it showed. We lacked that fitness and confidence.
We paid the price, at times we were sluggish and weren’t at it.
Luke Shaw
“We haven’t been able to prepare in the way that we wanted and that’s not an excuse because we have the quality of players to be able to win games like this but we weren’t up to it and we’ve been punished.
“It’s the start of a new season, we should have been fresh. We knew how Palace were going to play, sit in the block and try and stay on that, possibly all of their goals came from that.
“We paid the price and at times we were sluggish and weren’t at it.”
Shaw refused to blame the VAR controversy that handed Crystal Palace their second goal.
A harsh handball was awarded against Victor Lindelof. David De Gea saved from Jordan Ayew but was penalised for coming off his line and Wilfried Zaha fired home the retake.
Shaw continued: “No one even knew there was an incident going on, I don’t think I saw one person on the pitch actually complaining.
“Obviously shocked and surprise but nothing surprises me with VAR.
“Sometimes you ride your luck, maybe we did last season at times and got the benefit of that but we saw the other way round of it and we can’t blame that because we were so sloppy and not good enough.”
Man Utd boss Solskjaer tells his thoughts on new signing Donny van de Beek
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
