This. Keepers are on a hiding to nothing these days, thank f**k I played when the balls moved like they should. The ball dips and swerves all over the place now, as an ex-keeper, with the balls like they are now, anyhow DDG keeps it out is fine by me and if he gets distance, even better.
David de Gea | 2011-14 Performances
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This. Keepers are on a hiding to nothing these days, thank f**k I played when the balls moved like they should. The ball dips and swerves all over the place now, as an ex-keeper, with the balls like they are now, anyhow DDG keeps it out is fine by me and if he gets distance, even better.
I doubt he'd have even got to that if he'd went with his hands. The ball was moving like crazy.
Shit, the more you watch that save the better it gets. He does have that Schmeichel-esque 'how the feck did he save that?!" factor about him if nothing else.
That gif is 
Other than Nev blaming him about the freekick, it's a shame neither BBC nor Sky discussed his performance or that save. If that was another GK from another team in Manchester, you can bet they'd have brought it up.
Other than Nev blaming him about the freekick, it's a shame neither BBC nor Sky discussed his performance or that save. If that was another GK from another team in Manchester, you can bet they'd have brought it up.
That gif is
Other than Nev blaming him about the freekick, it's a shame neither BBC nor Sky discussed his performance or that save. If that was another GK from another team in Manchester, you can bet they'd have brought it up.
Agreed, De Gea was excellent yesterday
Very good shot-stopper.
A very good save, but my god, what an orgy of superlatives. The boy has feck all control of his penalty area and must be a nightmare of a goalkeeper for defenders to count on. He has absolutely given up attempting to reach the ball in corners/freekicks.
Absolutely embarrassing to compare the 3-page salute for one save to the insults thrown at all media outlets praising Joe Hart after his outstanding performance against Dortmund.
A very good save, but my god, what an orgy of superlatives. The boy has feck all control of his penalty area and must be a nightmare of a goalkeeper for defenders to count on. He has absolutely given up attempting to reach the ball in corners/freekicks.
Absolutely embarrassing to compare the 3-page salute for one save to the insults thrown at all media outlets praising Joe Hart after his outstanding performance against Dortmund.
We can say it's as unorthodox as we like. Fact is, he learned it somewhere and it's paying off for us. What's more surprising is how some in the media construe DDG's "unorthodox" approach as the wrong way of goalkeeping. I know a fair amount are used to seeing keepers use their hands more, but at least be open to the benefits of using your legs at times.
These kind of posts can be quite annoying. There's always at least one person who tries to balance things out and this is just a poor attempt to me. Only superlative I've seen is praising how good of a shot stopper he is.
On Mata's freekick, after watching the match again, I think De Gea moves left because he can't see the ball but like Gary pointed out, he shouldn't be allowing the ball to go past him on his side. It's a catch-22 for me. Perfect freekick but ideally, De Gea could have got to it. I think Gary brought up an interesting point. You can see he's a man of principle and he feels no matter what, your keeper can't let the ball past on the near post as De Gea did. However, if you think back to when VDS was a keeper for us, he stayed rooted to the spot and we conceded freekick goals on the far post more often than now. It's a fine line I think.
Re Gary Neville's thoughts, that's why he was a right-back and not a goalkeeper. Surely he must appreciate how difficult it is, once the ball is past the wall and aiming for a corner, for a keeper to reach it???
I wonder in assessing Schmeichel's career, what he thought of the Great Dane's efforts in conceding goals from free-kicks against Rivaldo (at the Camp Nou in Treble Season) and against Mario Basler (ditto), when he barely moved???
If De Gea keeps that free kick out we're all talking about a phenomenal save. Why then does it have to be either a great save or a mistake? Theres nothing to even debate here, its a perfect free kick from as close to the edge of the box as you can get. Just because its gone in on the keepers side doesn't make it an error on his part. Every goal we concede we try and pin blame on someone. If we must blame anyone its a silly foul by Rooney, but other than that just praise the quality of the strike.
Won me thirty euro, too, since I had a bet on over 2.5 goal and Mata to score.
So thanks for letting in, David!
So thanks for letting in, David!
If they'd bother asking some goalkeeper coaches or ex goalkeepers they'd tell the media people that it doesn't matter how you save it, just that you do save it. That's the number 1 thing.
Gary Neville is notoriously critical of goalkeepers. He always thinks they should save it!
That had goal written all over it. Wonderful save that.
That was a peach of a FK. Thated the extra step meant he saved the FK last season. As it turned out, Mata won the battle this year with a superb FK. Fair fecks to him. Someone doesnt have to be at fault for every goal the opposition score.
It's comparable to the save Seaman made against Sheffied United in the Cup. Although obviously Seaman's was better as it was from a closer distance and middle of the goal.
I felt this way too. Your last question goes to what I was saying in my last sentence. VDS did the same thing.
I think I recognized it as a perfect free kick. I can see both sides of the argument which is why I'm a bit split. I think it's harsh to criticize DDG based on the quality of Mata's strike. At the same time, in an ideal sense, he shouldn't be letting those balls through. In fact, I side more with De Gea more than anything. I think Gary made a valid point as well so it's hard for me not to consider it. I agree on the bit about Rooney. He lost his head there and it made the opportunity possible.
True. Problem is they won't. Most of them are too thick. As someone pointed out in another thread, I think some of these guys like hearing the sounds of their own voices. In essence, they take their job a bit too seriously.
There's a trend in football (spouted by coaches & managers, parroted by pundits) that expresses itself in stuff like 'As long as your defence is organised, you should never concede...especially from set-pieces)'; this kind of glib, pass-the-buck thinking is nonsense, as anyone who's played the game will confirm. Similar to this is the mindset which maintains that, so long as the goalkeeper is positioned correctly, any goal conceded is an error on the 'keeper's part. It's unreasonable, and not backed-up by real-life experience.
I can't see why any of you are giving De Gea a hard time. He made one error all match which was the miskick but immediately made up for it. The free-kick he had two options. One was to stand on the side the ball went in, and give himself maybe a 90% chance of keeping it out but no chance of it went the other side. The option he chose was to give himself an 80 percent chance of keeping it out his side, but also a good chance the other side like he did last year. He only got beaten because it was a great freekick.
The one thing about freekicks, as a keeper you are told (well I was anyway), you set up a wall to guard one area and you guard the other area.
I think as a keeper, DDG will fault himself for making the step. A lot of keepers do it and its a gamble but ideally you want the freekick to be world class to move up over the wall and down under the bar to an area the keeper cant reach.
The saving with the feet is brilliant. Its easier at some points to use your feet than your hands because, you know, your feet are actually there, and having to change your body shape to get your hand down there will mean the ball passes you. Im surprised more keepers dont do this.
DDG needs to play as many games as possible. He will save us points and to think, he will improve on his control of the box / communication. Other keepers whilst they may have control of their box now will not be able to improve stuff like reflexes.
I think as a keeper, DDG will fault himself for making the step. A lot of keepers do it and its a gamble but ideally you want the freekick to be world class to move up over the wall and down under the bar to an area the keeper cant reach.
The saving with the feet is brilliant. Its easier at some points to use your feet than your hands because, you know, your feet are actually there, and having to change your body shape to get your hand down there will mean the ball passes you. Im surprised more keepers dont do this.
DDG needs to play as many games as possible. He will save us points and to think, he will improve on his control of the box / communication. Other keepers whilst they may have control of their box now will not be able to improve stuff like reflexes.
I don't see why De Gea using his feet to block was such an issue with the commentators. It takes less time to move your foot to the right than it does to drop to the ground and get your hand out. Excellent and intelligent save from him I say.
Not exactly exclusive to De Gea either. Pat Jennings and Gary Bailey both used their feet a lot to make saves.
Or the hype he got against Real Madrid after being at fault for two of the three goals.
i agree with neville, he shouldn't have took that step across, the walls got that side-he's got the other. He's clearly trying to second-guess Mata and it cost him cuz he saves it otherwise. Not the worst error in the world though you see goalkeepers do it all the time and he was otherwise excellent, the save from the torres header was magnificent
Does everyone believe 100% he made the step to second guess Mata?
It's a real question, at first for me it seemed obvious that was the reason, but after seeing a gif posted in the Mata thread, I wonder whether he didn't make that side step to get a view of the ball.
It's a real question, at first for me it seemed obvious that was the reason, but after seeing a gif posted in the Mata thread, I wonder whether he didn't make that side step to get a view of the ball.
Hindsight is 20/20. He couldn't see the ball and did the thing that gave him best coverage of the goal. When you are dealing with uncertainty and risk, the right call is to go with the best option at the time- it's only with hindsight that people tear the decisions apart.
Neville is a good pundit generally but even he admits he is hyper-critical of goalkeepers. He's wrong with this one.
Does everyone believe 100% he made the step to second guess Mata?
It's a real question, at first for me it seemed obvious that was the reason, but after seeing a gif posted in the Mata thread, I wonder whether he didn't make that side step to get a view of the ball.
I think he did. He's unfortunate that the side step coincided with the moment Mata hit the ball so almost immediately he needed to dive in the other direction.
Does everyone believe 100% he made the step to second guess Mata?
It's a real question, at first for me it seemed obvious that was the reason, but after seeing a gif posted in the Mata thread, I wonder whether he didn't make that side step to get a view of the ball.
Thats a really good gif. You can see that De Gea can't see the ball between Cleverley and Young cos Ivanovic is standing in the way, and because Van Persie is involved in a bit of shovin a space opens between him and Cleverley. This is why De Gea takes the sidestep, to get a view of the ball. He can see nothing otherwise
That really is a brilliant gif and should seriously take the blame away from De Gea.
Rooney is at fault for giving away such a stupid free-kick in a position like that, nightmare situation for the GK.
It went in his side. Sorry, that really is the end of that.
Top GK in the making for me. Right now he does somethign at least once a game that makes me go 'feck!'
Top GK in the making for me. Right now he does somethign at least once a game that makes me go 'feck!'
Overly simplistic nonsense
Gary Neville, who is usually right on most issues is totally off the mark here. I think he even said something along the lines of "Hart would've saved it"
Me too, it's usually a World Class save.
Looking at that gif the wall is pretty shit isn't it? All that pushing and shoving certainly didn't help either.
The poor bloke just gets so much scrutiny its beyond belief.
The poor bloke just gets so much scrutiny its beyond belief.
Torres isn't even bothered about the ball in that gif. The ball is going into the net and he's shoving RvP.
It's clearly been decided, either by him or management or both, that on free-kicks he should attempt to save anything that comes over the wall. This results in him having to take a risk on his side of the goal. Seeing as most free-kicks come over the wall, it seems like a good approach to take.
Easy thing to say, but it's vacuous rubbish.
Based on de Gea's save at Chelsea last season if Hart had have conceded it, could just have easily have said 'de Gea would've saved it'. Football isn't about taking the highlights of a player's careers and applying it to other situations. Look at the Real Madrid game, the Benzema and Ronaldo goals- applying the mental highlights of those shots you can picture de Gea saving at least one of them. Football doesn't work like that.
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