Louis van Gaal has challenged Roy Hodgson’s assessment that Luke Shaw has questionable fitness. The Manchester United manager described the left-back as “an example to the dressing room” owing to his determination to follow the club’s fitness regime.

Van Gaal had described the 19-year-old as unfit during United’s tour of the United States yet after Hodgson, the England manager, agreed he moved to clarify his position.

“About Shaw I want to say something,” said Van Gaal. “I have read nasty articles about him, also in the US I have said to him: ‘You came in here not fit’, and I changed the programme for him. He did everything he has to do to be fit, and now he is an example in the dressing room and is training fantastically. So when you want to write something you can ask me if he is doing his work or not.”

Hodgson had said: “I must say, watching him play in the matches for Southampton which caused me to select him, watching him in the game against Costa Rica when he played, he didn’t seem to have too many problems coping with the physical side of the game.

“That doesn’t mean to say he can’t be fitter and if Louis thinks that he can get him fitter then I’m sure he will certainly have our approval. But I think when he [Van Gaal] talks to [Mauricio] Pochettino then Pochettino will say to him: ‘What you were saying to Luke Shaw and what you’ve been saying to him, is what I was actually saying to him.’”

Yet when asked about these comments, Van Gaal said: “He’s not fit now because he’s injured [with a hamstring problem]. But Roy Hodgson cannot judge him at this moment. Roy Hodgson cannot judge him because I have never seen Roy Hodgson here at the training session and so on, so I think he refers to the World Cup. It’s possible, but that I want to ask.”