Ole reveals the secret behind Shaw's success

The likeable left-back earned his first Man-of-the-Match award of the season for a terrific display at Liverpool on Sunday but, in truth, he has been in fine form for some time.

Luke suggested at Anfield that it is down to the faith of his manager and competition provided by Alex Telles but the manager feels it is down to more than good man-management and the spur of having the Brazil international on board.

For Ole, most of the credit goes to Luke himself and his mental strength, which has been boosted by a change at home.

"Luke has immense quality," explained the boss. "He has a very good technique, good quality. You see against Liverpool, he takes the ball and drives forward, that is something that I have pushed him more to do because we know he can do it.

“It is generally down to the boy himself, mentally he is very good at the moment, he has become a dad. He is physically very good, his fitness is so much better and he keeps beating his high-intensity stats and his total distance stats. He has been consistently up there with what a full-back should be doing.

“When you have the talent of Luke, when that fitness and the mental bit is sorted then you are always going to get good performances."

When asked if Shaw's confidence needed lifting when Ole returned to the club, the manager admits he spoke to the defender regularly, but this is the case for all of the players.

"It is about seeing everyone as individuals and human beings," he said. "I did spend a lot of time talking to the individuals and Luke as well. He is a boy I enjoy talking to and I enjoy trying to help him, he wants to be better.

“It was about getting him enjoying his football, we know his talent, trusting his fitness injury-wise, having players who can back him up so he knows he is not going to play every single game, so he can play fully fit. I think both Brandon [Williams] and Alex coming in has given him a little bit of a push to tell me anyway that I’ve got good options." 

Shaw is hoping United can win at Fulham to continue our impressive run of form on the road in the Premier League, now stretching back a full year.

"It’s nice to hold that record," he admitted. "But we need to push that record on at home. We need to be better at home. Looking at our away form is great, but when you look at our home form, it needs to improve. We need to keep pushing. Hopefully, we can go again on Wednesday and get three points at Fulham.

“We need to try to not focus too much on the table for now. We need to ignore the results that are going on around us and try and just focus on ourselves and try to win every game we can. Fulham is a massive game on Wednesday and it’s not going to be easy, so we need to get ourselves up for that again.”