Luke Shaw has outlined how Erik ten Hag's ruthless streak has instilled a discipline into the Manchester United squad previously unseen during the defender's nine years with the club.
The Dutchman has overseen a seismic and rapid improvement at United, bouncing back from a false start of consecutive defeats to cement their place in the top-four and progress into the latter stages of both domestic and European cups. On Sunday, a first chance at silverware comes in the form of the Carabao Cup final against Newcastle.
Ten Hag's short but encouraging tenure has been bookmarked by a number of ruthless acts of discipline, with top-scorer and star striker Marcus Rashford benched against Wolves for turning up late to a meeting while Cristiano Ronaldo was axed altogether after his infamous interview with Piers Morgan.
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Such discipline has not been present around M16 since Sir Alex Ferguson left in 2013, and Shaw has singled out his manager's ruthless streak as the reason for United's transformation.
"The control he takes, the rules he sets out and everyone has to follow them or, as you've seen recently, if you're not following his rules and doing what he wants then you won't play," Shaw said. "That's one of the biggest things in his locker, that it doesn't matter who you are, if you're not following his rules you won’t play. That sets very high standards within the club that everyone has to follow his principles to be in the team
"You have to come in and set those rules straight away and he wants to lead by example, by what he wants to present and how he wants everyone to conduct themselves. It started in pre-season when it came out one of the younger lads was late and got a telling off.
"Recently with Rashy missing a meeting, the way he was playing at that point, on fire and it just shows what the manager is like by dropping one of our best players. It's just showing the standards and what he expects from everyone.
"He set the tone straight away, you could understand how he was going to approach the way he wants the team to look not just on the pitch but off the pitch too. Especially after some moments in pre-season, you saw what he was doing and how he acted when people weren’t doing the right things. He just sets the example and everyone knows now what he wants."
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