Luke Shaw in action against Tottenham earlier this season.

Shaw: Our confidence has not been dented

Monday 18 February 2019 10:52

Manchester United defender Luke Shaw insists the team’s confidence has not been dented by the Champions League setback to Paris Saint-Germain in midweek.

The left-back is convinced the Reds can answer any questions raised by the defeat to the French champions positively, starting with Monday night’s Emirates FA Cup fifth-round test at Chelsea.

Luke Shaw helped United win in west London at Fulham recently.
Quite how United respond to a first reverse since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer took caretaker charge is something Shaw believes will show the true mettle of the players, even if our record at Stamford Bridge in recent years has not been good.

"I think this will now be our biggest test,” he told MUTV. “Obviously, we’ve been winning and winning really well. We’ve had a couple of tough away games which we’ve won and now we’ll see how we adapt to a loss as we haven’t had one in a while. We’ll see how we go into the next game and we want to win that one.

"It’s the most confident I’ve felt within the group in a long while, especially before the PSG game, as I felt so confident in the team. What we have been doing is very positive with the mentality going into that tie but it wasn’t our day.

"But we’re all very confident and we take that into training every day. The results have been showing that. Look, we can’t take one loss as a massive dent to us. It’s just a learning curve and we go again."

Stamford Bridge has not been a happy hunting ground for United of late, but we were within seconds of picking up three points there earlier in the campaign, until Ross Barkley’s equaliser, deep into stoppage time, made it 2-2.

Anthony Martial scored both goals on that occasion but both he and Jesse Lingard will be missing in the FA Cup through injury.

Chelsea 2 United 2

 Article

Despite Martial's brilliant double, the Reds are forced to settle for a point after a late Barkley leveller.

"These are the games you want to play,” added Shaw. “You’ve got to beat the best teams in the competition to win it and it’s better to do it now, and get them out of the way. We know what we need to do against Chelsea as we had the game there earlier in the season and I felt we played really well and were unlucky not to get the win. We’ll remember the positives from that game and take it into Monday.

"They’ve been going through a rough patch and will be looking to put things right against us. It’s such a big game for them to do that but we’re the same. I don’t think anything else other than it is a very hard match, a tough game to have, but we’re ready for it." 

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