Roy Hodgson has suggested that Luke Shaw, the Manchester United defender, could yet feature in his England squad for this summer’s European Championship finals, insisting that he is still hopeful that the 20-year-old could recover from his devastating leg break in time to join the national team in France.
Shaw suffered a double fracture of his right leg during United’s Champions League defeat to PSV Eindhoven in September, prompting fears he would not play again this season. He has spent the last six months undergoing a recovery programme at the club’s A-On Training Complex, making sufficient progress for Louis van Gaal, the United manager, to name him in his squad for the knockout stages of the Europa League.
Hodgson has been kept abreast of his recovery and, though Shaw did not attend the February get-together of England players at St George’s Park and will not be called up for this month’s friendlies with Germany and Holland, he has not yet ruled out the former Southampton player – along with another long-term injury victim, Jack Wilshere – being ready to return in time for the finals.
“In terms of the March fixtures, we are going to be missing one or two players,” Hodgson said, while in the French capital for a Uefa coaches’ workshop. “We are still monitoring Luke Shaw, he is making good progress, [just as] we are monitoring Jack Wilshere, who is making very good progress. But we have to accept in March we won’t have those players, but hopefully in May, when I have to make a decision, they will be available for selection.”
Hodgson is confident, too, that a number of other likely inclusions in his squad currently sidelined by injury – Wayne Rooney, Fabian Delph, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain – will have recovered long before the finals, meaning that he does not have to endure the traditional anxious wait to discover who can and cannot be in his squad.
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“The most important thing is that the players I select in May are all absolutely 100 per cent fully fit,” he said. “[So I am not] forced into that situation where I have to make that very, very difficult decision: ‘do I take a player who is not 100 per cent fit at the moment, but could be in two or three weeks’ time?’ That’s not a pleasant situation to find yourself in.
“If I find myself in that situation then I’ll have to contend with that decision but I’m rather hoping that with Wayne, with Ox, certainly with Jack, with Fabian Delph, it won’t be a question of me having to make a decision with them being injured now and wondering can they recover. I’m hoping they have recovered.”
The England manager’s bullish mood has, he suggested, been bolstered by the day he spent with a host of his players in Burton last month. He was joined at St George’s Park by almost 40 hopefuls – with only a couple requesting leaves of absence to undergo medical tests – to “review the principles” he had instilled in them during a flawless qualification campaign.
“That gave me enormous pleasure,” he said. “I enjoyed meeting the players and having a chance to exchange a few words, and then review the principles we have been working on since the World Cup in terms of our aims and philosophies. I did a review and then we outlined in some clips some instances which could be interesting to get their feedback on.”