Manchester United defender Luke Shaw hailed the feeling of finally getting his hands on a trophy after the Red Devils ended their six-year trophy drought.
Erik ten Hag’s men overcame Newcastle 2-0 at Wembley Stadium to secure the Carabao Cup. It represented the Dutchman’s first piece of major silverware since his summer arrival from Ajax.
It was also an emotional moment for Shaw at the national stadium. Despite receiving a winners’ medal for the Europa League and League Cup during the 2016/17 season under Jose Mourinho, he did not play a role in either of those two finals, having missed the FA Cup triumph a year earlier through injury.
When he did get the chance to try and lift silverware under the stewardship of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the Red Devils found themselves on the losing side to Villarreal in the 2021 Europa League final. That run of bad luck continued on the international front - Shaw’s early goal against Italy in the Euro 2020 final not being enough to secure victory for the Three Lions.
Speaking the day after United’s Wembley success, Shaw expressed his relief at finally lifting a trophy. “Yes of course it feels different but I think I’ve had a lot of good times here and some bad,” he said to Sky Sports.
“I think for me personally, yesterday was big for me because I obviously lost the Europa League final in the one that I played in on penalties and obviously in the other finals I hadn’t played when we won. It was really nice to be involved in a final yesterday and be able to play and win the trophy.
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“Really good feeling obviously at the start of the season, our aims were to win trophies and obviously it’s always nice to win one early and still have pretty much half of the season left to go. Obviously we want to aim for more trophies but I think starting with that, it’s a good start and a real belief that we can add more until the end of the season.”
Shaw underlined the Red Devils’ desire for more silverware this term under Ten Hag and the defender was full of praise for the Dutchman’s work at Old Trafford, recovering from a horrendous start which saw them lose heavily to Brentford.
He continued: “We don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves but I think the belief and the confidence is definitely getting bigger and bigger here and we need to keep onto that. Yes a big change I think.
“Maybe if we think back, it [Brentford defeat] was maybe good that happened at the start because a lot changed since then. I think a lot of that is down to the manager with how he acted with us after that game and the decisions and stuff he did after that game that obviously changed the mentality here.
“We all love working under him and all believe in what he wants us to do and we’re really enjoying our football at the moment. Hopefully that can continue.”
