Luke Shaw will seek to revive his England career this week after admitting he almost lost his right leg as a result of complications from the horrific injury sustained while playing for Manchester United in the Champions League three years ago.

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A tackle by PSV Eindhoven’s Héctor Moreno left Shaw, the world’s most expensive teenage player at the time, with a double fracture of the limb. Having received oxygen on the pitch at the Philips Stadion, he was taken on a stretcher from the field to the nearby St Anna Ziekenhuis hospital in Geldrop for surgery. United had been contemplating flying the player home to begin his rehabilitation, only for doctors to discover two blood clots on the limb which required another emergency operation.

Shaw was oblivious at the time to the implications of the complications if he had not continued his convalescence in the Netherlands. “I was really close to losing my leg but I didn’t know that until six months later when the doctor told me,” said Shaw, who would face a long period of rehabilitation and end up missing 11 months of football as a result of the injuries. “At the time they were thinking about flying me back.

“But if I’d flown back, I would probably have lost my leg because of the blood clots. I’ve got two scars down the side of my leg where they had to cut me open and pull them out. I only found out six months later. I had a lot of complications with my leg but I feel really strong now and my right leg is as good as it was before my leg break.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Luke Shaw has played just seven minutes of international football since Héctor Moreno’s tackle in 2015. Photograph: John Thys/AFP/Getty Images

While Moreno ended that tie being awarded Uefa’s man of the match, Shaw went on to contemplate retirement during a gruelling recovery period and turned to a psychologist for support. “After the leg break it was a very tough time,” he said. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t sometimes thought about stopping playing football [during rehabilitation]. It went on for a long period, doing the same things every day. I couldn’t do anything else because of the break. It was frustrating but I came out the other side.

“I had a lot of good people around me, friends and family, who helped me through it. The psychologist was a real positive and I benefited strongly from using him. I still use him now. He’s a really close friend now, I’d say, and gets the best out of me. I enjoy using him.”

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A player who had made his international debut as a teenager back in 2014 and played at the World Cup in Brazil has managed only seven minutes of football for his country – against Germany in Dortmund in March 2017 – in the period since the injury. Yet Shaw’s selection for Gareth Southgate’s squad for Saturday’s Nations League tie with Spain, and next week’s friendly against Switzerland, came after a fine start to the season at United where he has featured in every minute of the team’s four Premier League games to date.

His displays saw him named the club’s player of the month, with his form and fitness testimony to cutting out “some of the silly things I’d been doing” and committing to a conditioning and nutrition programme in pre-season. The 23-year-old took Gary Walker, United’s head of strength and conditioning, and a personal trainer on holiday with him to Dubai over the summer to ensure he was ready to attack the new season head on, and he now appears to have won over José Mourinho, once a very vocal and regular critic, at his club.

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“In periods when everything was going really well I may have taken my foot off the pedal and got comfortable where I was at, not carrying on to the next level,” he added. “That’s where I’ve changed from a kid to a man, I’ve realised that. At times [Mourinho] got frustrated with me because he knew I could do better. When I look back, maybe he was right at times. Now, I don’t want to keep focusing on that. I had a chat with the manager before the season and he said he wanted me to stay and fight for my place, and that motivated me a lot.”

Shaw is in contention to earn an eighth cap over the next week, though England’s preparations, already disrupted by Raheem Sterling’s withdrawal with a back complaint, have been further hampered after Adam Lallana returned to Liverpool after pulling up with a groin problem in training at St George’s Park. The midfielder, who was restricted to only three club starts in all competitions last term after thigh and hamstring problems, has travelled back to Melwood for treatment.

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Southgate has opted against calling up another outfield player, but has added the uncapped Fulham goalkeeper, Marcus Bettinelli, to the squad. Harry Kane, who is suffering from a cold, left training early on Tuesday but is still expected to captain the side against the Spanish at Wembley.

Southgate sympathised with Lallana after his latest injury setback. The England manager said: “He has just picked up a muscular injury. It was quite close to the beginning of training so it is the worst thing as far as we are concerned because you never want to send players back injured. Adam has had such a difficult run personally. He is a player we think so much of and I know Jürgen [Klopp] does. So, at the moment, he is having a really difficult run and you review what you might have been able to do differently but today was just really out of the blue. I am really disappointed for him because he has had such a tough year - missing so much football. Hopefully he will be back strong as quickly as possible.”

Asked about the severity of the injury, Southgate said: “That has to be assessed, it is still to be scanned properly but he is certainly out of our two games.”

On Bettinelli’s call, Southgate added: “All of our goalkeepers have been modified one way or another with their training. We felt it useful to bring another goalkeeper in for training. Marcus is another player we have worked with in the under-21s in the past. We obviously have a situation in the Premier League at the moment where there aren’t many English goalkeepers playing. Marcus is very comfortable with the ball at his feet and fits that prototype of goalkeeper and there is no point in us calling up a senior goalkeeper who has worked with us in the past just for training. So it is a good opportunity for Marcus.”