Soccer News Soccer Match Reports, Football News
Luke Shaw has stepped his recovery from a hamstring injury to hand England a huge fitness boost ahead of the European Championship.
The Manchester United left-back has not played for three months but was still named in Gareth Southgate’s 33-man pre-Euro 2024 last month as the only natural left-back.
Shaw sat out Monday’s 3-0 win over Bosnia and Herzegovia on Monday and remains a doubt to feature regularly in Germany even if he can prove his fitness.
But he now looks to have taken a significant step towards making the final 26-man selection after returning to training on the grass for the first time since February.
The 28-year-old is not yet capable of taking part in full training but was pictured to be full of smiles with team-mate Declan Rice on England’s official X page on Wednesday.
:grinning::grinning: pic.twitter.com/hrd3U9dDM7
— England (@England) June 5, 2024
How key is Shaw’s fitness to Southgate?
It seems unlikely Shaw would be fit enough start any of England’s group games, with Kieran Trippier likely to deputise against Serbia, Denmark and Slovenia.
But the 31-cap international could well recover in time to play a prominent role in the knockout stages should they make it that far.
That would undoubtedly be a massive positive for Southgate, who has favoured the Red Devils ace in the left-back berth in England’s last two tournament campaigns.
Shaw started every game of the Three Lions’ memorable campaign at the last Euros, scoring in the final as they agonisingly lost out to Italy on penalties.
He was then an almost ever-present at the Qatar World Cup in 2022, in which England crashed out to France in the quarter-finals.
What has Southgate said about Shaw?
Despite missing United’s final 17 games of the season, manager Southgate said before Monday’s clash at St James’ Park that Shaw has a strong chance of earning a place.
“He’s progressing very well, I have to say,” Southgate told talkSPORT.
“I think I said last week…
Source link : https://www.101greatgoals.com/news/england-luke-shaw-injury-news-euro-2024/
Author : Cian Cheesbrough
Publish date : 2024-06-05 15:41:04
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
