The 6 players Man Utd signed along with Luke Shaw & how they fared
Manchester United were at a crossroads when Louis van Gaal arrived at Old Trafford in 2014 and brought Luke Shaw through the door with him.
The David Moyes experiment had failed and United were facing a season outside of Europe for the first time since 1989-1990. The rebuild of Sir Alex Ferguson’s last title-winning squad couldn’t be delayed any longer. The summer of 2014 was therefore a busy time for Van Gaal and the United board.
Luke Shaw was one of those signings and it’s been a bumpy ride over the years, with a high under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer but a terrible time under Jose Mourinho, followed by another dip under Ralf Rangnick and a return to his best form under Erik ten Hag.
Nine years after he first joined, we’ve had another look at the players United signed at the same time as Shaw.
Ander Herrera
Herrera was Van Gaal’s first signing, joining from Athletic Bilbao a year after he was supposed to.
He made 189 appearances across five seasons at the club, winning the FA Cup, League Cup and Europa League. Having seen out his contract, he signed a five-year deal with PSG in the summer of 2019, where he remained until 2022, when he rejoined his boyhood club.
The midfielder wasn’t the most gifted player, but United fans warmed to him for his work rate and commitment to the cause.
Vanja Milinkovic-Savic
The younger brother of Lazio talisman Sergei Milinkovic-Savic, Vanja was signed by United before being loaned back to his Serbian club Vojvodina.
He never made a first-team appearance during his two years on United’s books and the goalkeeper was sold to Lechia Gdansk in 2016.
He’s now at Torino and, after a series of loans away, has come into the fold. He was an ever-present in Serie A last season and represented Serbia at the 2022 World Cup.
Marcos Rojo
Having impressed for Argentina at the 2014 World Cup, Rojo joined United for a reported £16million fee from Spartak Moscow.
An early injury to Shaw gave the defender plenty of opportunities to make the left-back spot his own but Rojo became an increasingly erratic presence at the back.
He ended up being pushed to the sidelines long before his departure to Boca Juniors in February 2021. Rojo and one of South America’s most volatile football clubs are some combination…
READ: Marcos Rojo’s Superclasico kung fu head kick summed up his career in a second
Angel Di Maria
In his column for the Sunday Times, Wayne Rooney said: “When he came to United I remember Louis van Gaal saying to the team: ‘He is the only one who is allowed to dribble with the ball.’
“He could have been a major star at United but at the time we were going through a bit of a transition and it was tough for him to settle. He had young kids and lived a couple of houses down from me and someone tried to burgle him. I remember that really shook him and his family.
“From then on, really, you knew it was going to be tough for him and it was probably better for him to leave.”
The Argentinian World Cup winner is now at Juventus, having registered over 100 assists and won five Ligue 1 titles across his seven years at PSG.
Now back at Benfica, he’s had a hell of a career in which his short-lived United stint can be seen as a blip. Still, he’ll always have that chip against Leicester.
A sublime Angel Di Maria finish at the King Power Stadium 🍟#GoalOfTheDay // @ManUtd pic.twitter.com/yMp6paggPl
— Premier League (@premierleague) October 21, 2021
Daley Blind
Reuniting with Van Gaal, Netherlands international Blind was hailed as a canny signing by United and expected to be an integral part of their renaissance.
It didn’t quite work out that way. Blind was okay at Old Trafford, playing 141 times for the club and starting the victorious 2017 Europa League final at centre-back.
But there was always a nagging sense that United could do better and Blind was sold to Ajax in 2018.
Blind is now at Girona after falling out with Erik ten Hag’s successor Alfred Schreuder.
Timothy Fosu-Mensah
Joining from Ajax as a 16-year-old in 2014, Fosu-Mensah made 21 appearances as a teenager under Van Gaal, but only made nine more until his release in 2021.
Loan spells at Crystal Palace and Fulham, while still on United’s books, were semi-productive and Fosu-Mensah is now plying his trade at Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen.
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TRY A QUIZ: Can you name Man Utd’s XI for Louis van Gaal’s first game as boss in 2014?