Shaw Blow Hurts Back-four Run

The merits of a settled back four have long been advocated so it is a real shame the quartet of Matteo Darmian, Chris Smalling, Daley Blind and Luke Shaw will be broken up at Southampton this weekend because of the latter's broken leg.

Everybody at Manchester United, and within the wider footballing community, felt for Shaw when he was clearly in some distress in Tuesday night's Champions League defeat at PSV Eindhoven. The popular England international has enjoyed a wonderful start to the campaign for club and country and showed why we hope he can be our left-back for the next decade.

Consequently, after eight successive fixtures with the same defensive line-up, Louis van Gaal will be forced into a change at St Mary's - meaning Shaw will miss out on a return to his old stamping ground for the second year running. In last December's 2-1 triumph, a back three of Paddy McNair, Smalling and Marcos Rojo started the game with both McNair and Smalling substituted within 39 minutes on the south coast.

It was indicative of a first year at the helm when the defence was regularly reshuffled, largely due to injuries, but it has been a completely different story in 2015/16, even if Phil Jones has been unavailable since the beginning of the campaign.

Shaw, Darmian and Smalling were the three candidates for our Player of the Month award for August while Blind won the Man-of-the-Match accolade against Liverpool last weekend. The defensive unit was looking particularly strong, providing a base for United to push on and rack up the points at home and in Europe.

Only four goals had been conceded in the opening seven games and 24 minutes before Shaw's sickening incident at the Philips Stadion and the consistency in selection and performance at the back was clearly benefiting the Reds. Let's not forget, it was a rare treat to enjoy such continuity.

To find a longer run since the start of a season for a four-man defence, you have to go back to 1993/94 and the club's first-ever Double-winning side. The settled backline of Paul Parker, Steve Bruce, Gary Pallister and Denis Irwin can be reeled off from memory by any United fan and they were selected for the opening 11 fixtures of that glorious campaign before a League Cup tie against Stoke City ended the sequence.

In 2007/08, Wes Brown, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra were selected in Sir Alex Ferguson's first nine line-ups but this was complicated by the fact Evra played further forward with Mikael Silvestre slotting in at left-back for three of those fixtures, hence ensuring the four defenders were not always the same on each occasion.

Phil Neville was drafted in for Irwin seven games into 1999/2000 to disrupt the Gary Neville-Henning Berg-Jaap Stam-Irwin axis, while flicking through the record books back to Ron Atkinson's reign reveals Mike Duxbury, Kevin Moran, Graeme Hogg and Arthur Albiston played together in the opening eight matches.

So it was something of a rare treat to enjoy such assurance of a regular back four this year and, no doubt, one van Gaal was also pleased with. Thankfully, the cover is there within the squad to cope with the absence of any key individuals, even one who provides attacking impetus on the flank like Shaw.

Blind switched wide to accommodate Rojo's introduction in Eindhoven but the Argentinian is also capable of playing at full-back, having done so for his country in a World Cup final. Darmian can switch sides and Ashley Young has operated in a more defensive role on the left under the manager.

It is a problem van Gaal will look to solve, starting at Southampton on Sunday, but, whatever happens, it is a real pity for Shaw and sad to see a run of selections come to an end, when the supporters were feeling extremely reassured to see those names on every teamsheet.