After months of speculation and a successful season at the top level, Southampton & England’s young left-back, Luke Shaw, has completed his move to Manchester United after passing his medical. The move was imminent once BBC reported that he had passed his medical with the Red Devils.
This move tops off what has been an incredible season for the youngster which culminated in a first England call-up and a trip to the World Cup with the senior national team. His move to Manchester United is set to be worth in excess of £30 million, with many questioning if that’s a little over-priced. However considering his age and the fact that he already boasts first team experience, Luke Shaw has a good decade or so in him in the top-flight, with the cost of transfer directly benefiting the club over that period.
- Although this 2013/14 season has been the break-out year for the 18-yr-old Luke Shaw, he impressed even in his debut campaign under then Saints boss Nigel Adkins before Mauricio Pochettino took over. This website had published a detailed Scout Report on the youngster towards the end of his first top-flight campaign which you can read here.
- His exploits were noted in our Talent Radar feature as we named him in our list of 100 Best Young Players to Watch out for in 2014, with him being listed at #6 in our defenders category.
- Prior to the start of the season Luke Shaw was also listed down as one of the top 10 young Premier League players to keep an eye on in the 2013-14 campaign, and we even published a brief Premier League mid-season report on his performance in the campaign.
- Luke Shaw’s ability was so impressive that he even featured in our Talent Radar Young Player Awards with him being named in our Talent Radar Readers’ Team of the Season (based of course on the votes of our readers).
- Although he was convincingly beaten, our readers also named Luke Shaw as the third best youngster in the Premier League at our End of Season Awards.
- Towards the end of the campaign, we started regular Talent Radar Team of the Week articles, with Luke Shaw featuring for his performance against Crystal Palace.
The left-back spot has been an area of concern for a while now with Patrice Evra the undisputed pick for the last few years. Unfortunately the Frenchman, despite being an important figure in the dressing room, has regressed on the pitch and we’ve seen numerous opposition exploit this as we’ve repeatedly mentioned in our Tactical Analyses of matches featuring Manchester United. It remains to be seen what role Luke Shaw will have at United; it’s unknown if he will serve as an understudy to Evra or directly compete with the Frenchman for that spot in the XI, but Outside of the Boot and Talent Radar have no doubt that he’ll continue to impress.
