When Manchester United defender Luke Shaw posted on Instagram on Tuesday about his latest injury setback, he described the “absolute devastation” he was feeling and said this was “definitely” his “toughest period”.
This from a player who suffered a horrific double leg break in 2015 and who has lost a total of four and a half years to multiple injuries.
The focus on Shaw’s fitness was magnified again in the summer as England manager Gareth Southgate’s Euro 2024 selection gamble resulted in just two substitute appearances and a place in the starting line-up in the final against Spain.
Shaw, 29, has made just three substitute appearances for United this season after he sustained hamstring and calf injuries in February and August respectively.
In the social media post, Shaw acknowledged “frustrated, angry, disappointed” critics, but said “no-one is feeling that more than me”.
BBC Sport, working with data from website PremierInjuries.com, looked at the numbers behind Shaw’s injuries.
Almost five years of absence – Shaw’s key injury stats
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Since making his professional debut for Southampton as a 16-year-old in 2012, Shaw has had 75 separate periods of absence
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61 of those absences were due to injury, while 14 were because of illness
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13 of the injuries were to his hamstrings
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Shaw has been unavailable for 1,675 days due to injury, which is just over four and a half years
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The double leg break he suffered in September 2015 accounted for 305 of those days
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Illness, including contracting Covid in March 2022, has kept him out for 126 days – just over four months
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Shaw did feature in 71% of Manchester United’s Premier League games between the 2018-19 and 2022-2023 seasons
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Since the start of 2023-24, Shaw has appeared in just 14 of United’s 51 Premier League matches (18 in 73 in all competitions) – that is 27.5% of United’s league games (24.7% in all competitions)
‘The smallest problem can be magnified’
Shaw’s injury issues really began to ramp up in 2023, suggesting recurring injuries – particularly those in his hamstrings – have taken their toll.
“When you’re talking about highly tuned athletes, the smallest problem can easily be magnified,” said Ben Dinnery from Premier Injuries.
Dinnery explained that muscle injuries, especially hamstrings, have a particularly high recurrence rate in the first 30 days of returning to playing.
This is not helped by the increased demands placed on players and the need for them to return from injury as quickly as possible.
“Fans sometimes forget that players are asked to be involved and put themselves on the line, when in an ideal scenario you would be keeping them out of the starting 11,” said Dinnery.
“That’s the pressure of the game, it’s a results-based business, that’s how managers are judged. I’m sure Shaw had an open conversation with [former United manager] Erik ten Hag about whether he could play. These are the risks, there is the potential for a setback.”
Dinnery added that in Shaw’s case, his decision to accept an England call-up for Euro 2024 having not played in over three months – impacting his recovery work and pre-season preparations – may have backfired.
In October, former Manchester United defender Phil Jones gave a series of interviews, including with the BBC, about the mental and physical strain of battling with injuries throughout his career.
Jones said when he retired he had to “re-evaluate everything and unpick myself personally and professionally, with therapists and psychologists, to find myself”.