Luke Shaw opens up on why last season was his “toughest year” in candid admission

Shaw’s revelation

The 30-year-old said about injuries, “Honestly, it’s so tough. I think people just think, ‘Oh, he’s injured, he’s not bothered. He doesn’t care, he’s injured again’. But it’s not like that.”

“Last year I think was probably my toughest year. Obviously I broke my leg [in 2015] – that was completely different. But last year I just kept picking up injuries, and I just didn’t understand what was going wrong.”

“It was so hard, like, emotionally, everything. It was so tough.”

He continued, “I remember not knowing what to do. You feel like you’re letting people down. You feel like you’re letting your team down, the fans down.”

“Thankfully, this season, I feel like I’ve come on a better side with injuries. That was one of the most important things for me at the start of the season, was just making sure I was fit for the whole season.”

“It was a real tough period, but you just live and you learn. That also built me up even more, and made me more resilient. I learned a lot from it, and I’m in a much better place mentally for it now.”

Shaw insisted that he will use the lessons from that experience to help the next generation of players.

“I feel like that’s now kind of my job. You have young lads now coming in, loads of them that have so much potential coming to this club. [It’s the] biggest pressure there is in football, I think. And it’s about how you learn and, and you live with it.”

“For me, I’m grateful that I’ve been here for so long and I’ve had all them experiences, and I know how to deal with it and how to live with it. So I feel like – of course still playing – but also my job now is to give advice, and to help these young lads grow in experiences and understand the club and so they can really live it and, and enjoy it.”

Shaw and his teammates are next in action on Saturday when they go away to Sunderland.

Featured image Stu Forster via Getty Images

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