England senior team may benefit from Manchester United defender Luke Shaw

The England senior team may benefit from Manchester United defender Luke Shaw being left out of the England under 21 team for the upcoming European championships.

The former Southampton defender has endured a horrible first season at Old Trafford. At just 19 years of age, he is one of the youngest defenders available for selection to manager Roy Hodgson. He was seen as the future of the English left back position especially after the retirement of Ashley Cole. However, he appears to have struggled since his move to United, which came at a hefty transfer fee of almost £ 30 million.

He recently had to be stretchered off in the recent match against Crystal Palace, which United managed to win to almost secure a top four spot. His problem has been identified as concussion and this is likely to prevent his participation in the upcoming championships. England under 21 manager Gareth Southgate could have taken a gamble on the defender, but he has chosen to go for other alternatives. There are a number of good young players coming through into the U21 team at the moment. Chelsea’s Ruben Loftus-Cheek will be the youngest after having just turned 19 years of age in January.

“We had a couple of young players with injuries in the last camp and we started to go into detail and clubs aren’t very keen on that. Medically we don’t own the players, they could go into fixtures the following week and someone could target that. France at various levels caused us a problem because their physical profile is powerful and we have been [selecting] quite diminutive [players] in midfield in particular. We’ve gone for footballers because they are the best players in that age group,” said Southgate, who has also included Tottenham striker Harry Kane despite having already played for the senior team.