LUKE SHAW has accused Jose Mourinho of being obsessed with him.
The England defender, preparing for Tuesday’s Euro 2020 last-16 clash with Germany, is stunned he is still being criticised by his former boss at Manchester United.
Mourinho criticised Shaw for his “dramatically bad” and “poor” set-pieces in the 1-0 win over Czech Republic.
Shaw, 25, said: “There is no hiding that we didn’t get on. It is time to move on. I am trying to move on but, obviously, he can’t.
“Hopefully he can find his peace with that and finally move and stop worrying about me. Clearly I am in his head a lot and he clearly thinks about me a lot.
“I don’t really understand it, to be honest. I don’t know why he is still going on and wanting to point at me. I don’t feel like the set pieces were as bad as he was saying.
“I might have done one in the second half, a corner that didn’t get over the first man.
“But that was one out of three. The other two or three, I don’t think, were as ‘dramatically bad’ as he says. Look, he has got to do his job. He has got his opinion.
“I am used to him saying negative stuff about me now, so I just pass it by. I leave it be, I ignore it. I just focus on what the coaching staff say here, what Gareth says and that’s that, really.”
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Mourinho is a SunSport columnist during Euro 2020.
And speaking to our sister radio station talkSPORT after the win over the Czechs, Mourinho said: “The negative thing I would say is once more they were very poor on attacking corners.
“The service was dramatically bad. They have so many good players to attack corners. The crosses are not passing the first man.
“Luke Shaw, in my opinion, very good tonight but very poor on the corner. Kalvin Phillips, the same.”
And Shaw revealed he has even been quizzed by some of his England team-mates over Mourinho’s criticism.
He said: “He is different with different players. He likes some, he doesn’t like others.
‘I think I fell into the category where he didn’t like me. I tried as hard as I could to get back on to his good side but it never worked out, no matter what I did.
“He continuously talks about me, which I find quite strange. Even some of the lads have said ‘what’s his problem?’ And ‘why does he keep talking?’ He just needs to move on. He likes to talk a lot about me, as everyone has seen.
“He can say what he wants. I will focus on myself. I will listen to what Gareth has to say.
“I don’t think any of you realise the two or three years I had with him and how bad it was then, what it was like then.
“What he says now is nothing compared to how it used to be. I am being honest. I am so past it now. I have grown up a lot. The three years I had with him, I learnt a lot.
“I find it easy to ignore him now and even laugh about it. But it’s better just to ignore it.”
Sunday marked the seventh anniversary of Shaw’s arrival at Manchester United in a £33million move from Southampton
Under current Red Devils boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the left-back has flourished to force his way back into the England team.
He has started their last two Euros games and is set to keep his place against Germany.
Equally, he still feels the criticism from Mourinho that could have hurt his career. Shaw added: “I think it can have an effect but the way he was with me, that was him and he had his personal agenda.
“But everyone I had around me at the club was fully with me 100 per cent, so whatever went on between me and him was our own thing. But around the club with the chairman and everything like that, they all supported me fully.
“So I felt the backing from the club, but not the manager, but I knew I would be able to outlast him and I can just focus on getting better.”
Shaw’s first game under Southgate came against Germany in a 1-0 loss in 2017.
He has only played five matches since, bringing his overall tally to 12 — but he looks in good shape ahead of a fascinating knockout clash.
Asked what it would mean to beat Germany, Shaw said: “It would feel unbelievable. Not just for us as players, but for the whole nation.
“What’s happened in the past is the past, but us as a team want to create our own story and you know a perfect way to start that is by hopefully beating Germany and setting a tone for the rest of the tournament.
“I feel like you should always put pressure on yourself because you want to perform at your highest level and be at your best.
“There is no difference to England than with your club.
“It’s a different scenario in the knockout rounds, you lose, you’re out. You’ve got to put pressure on yourself to be at your best and especially in games like this you need to be at your best to try to help us qualify for the next round.”
Should an England team finally floor the Germans, the draw could open right up for the Three Lions like it did at the World Cup in Russia three years ago.
Shaw added: “The opportunity is massive but I think every team or every game in this competition is going to be very hard. We just need to take it game-by-game.
“We’ve got to try and ignore the fact of what’s coming up in the next round because this game is massive and there’s no denying that Germany are a quality team.
“We need to be at our absolute best to be able to beat them.”
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Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
