David de Gea | 2011-14 Performances

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So much of the criticism here and in the British media is pure stupidity. Yes, De Gea is not perfect. He is human. Human beings are not perfect. Other briliant keepers make mistakes too. Hart has outdone De Gea in the mistake department, by quite some distance.

It's fine to point out any one, two or three mistakes De Gea makes. But when you go there, you also have to acknowledge what he does right. And what he does right vastly exceeds what he does wrong. Based on what I've seen of De Gea over the last 12 months, he's easily been one of the top keepers in the English prem. In truth, no keeper in the prem has been better over the last 12 months. If that's not good enough for some caftards, you're going to have a very hard time ever accepting ANY United keeper. And that goes beyond stupidity and enters the realm of spoiled petulance.
 
kietotheworld said:
That's what, 7 mistakes in two seasons making about 50 appearances in each of them? De Gea has 4 already this season in just 13 League appearances, it's just not comparable.



I can't constructively criticise a player unless I want him replaced? Bullshit. I'd rather stick with De Gea and Lindegaard than bring in Begovic, and I don't think the Reina thing is really viable.
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It's not 4 mistakes though, in your opinion it's 4. In most other's there was not much he could have done about the Mata and Wiemann goals. I need to re-watch every season's goals against then put Schmeichel and VDS under the de Gea scrutiny and come back to you, and I'm sure I'll find plenty of goals that were possibly preventable, but nobody would ask twice about them. The video was not regular mistakes either, it was howlers. De Gea has made one "howler" which led to a goal and that was against Fulham.
 
He's 22 years of age.

Whenever you complain, moan or wonder what the feck he's doing. He's 22 years of age playing a 'old' mans position.

He has undeniable quality and potential, just let him mature.
 
Is there any other 22 year old GK who has as much experience, talent and trophies as DDG does? How many other GKs have to contend with playing behind a different centre-back pairing every game because of injury troubles?

Every keeper makes mistakes, it's how you respond and react to those mistakes which sets apart great keepers from the rest. Lindegaard made a few mistakes in the Reading and was ready to crumble. Whenever DDG has made a mistake he has not let that affect his performance which shows his mental strengths.

All things considered, DDG has done a fantastic job in his United career and he is only getting better (as shown by him being more adept at punching crosses). I expect the nonsensical speculation and criticism from the pundits and journalists but I find it ridiculous that Utd fans examine each goal we concede to see if DDG 'could've done better' or whether he was at fault - I can't remember any goalkeeper face as much scrutiny as DDG has.
 
Skywarden said:
Rubbish. Absolutely rubbish and I tell you why. How many mistakes are acceptable is completely and utterly in the hands of the manager. He deemed Schmeichel to be good enough despite his mistakes and inconsistent first years. He accepted all of those rash tackles Rafael made early on, too. He constantly reminded us, and still do, of Rafael's rashness but he also backs him up 100%, regardless of amount of mistakes. Ask yourself, why? Why did he stick with a seemingly unspectacular Fletcher whole-heartedly when fans where pissing themselves mad when they saw him being picked, week after another? I can go on with Evans too...Were they good enough for United, all at a very young age?

By your definition, no. Because of arbitrary factors such as "X did Y mistakes therefore he's not good enough".
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He stuck with Rafael in as much as he didn't sell him, but he often dropped him for more experienced players, don't forget that he couldn't consistently get ahead of Gary Neville right at the end of his career. As for Fletcher, Ferguson obviously has a soft spot for him, and at that time I don't think there was much money available to buy a replacement for him, as soon as he got the opportunity to replace him, however, Ferguson tried to by signing a player who was already world class in Hargreaves. Evans was definitely good enough to be a back-up for United at a very young age.

I get what you're driving at though, it's possible he has the potential to be an excellent goalkeeper, my argument is that he's not excellent now, and that people should stop pretending that he is or that any criticism of him is invalid. If a genuinely top class goalkeeper came onto the market now I don't doubt Ferguson would go after him.

Ruud10 said:
So much of the criticism here and in the British media is pure stupidity. Yes, De Gea is not perfect. He is human. Human beings are not perfect. Other briliant keepers make mistakes too. Hart has outdone De Gea in the mistake department, by quite some distance.

It's fine to point out any one, two or three mistakes De Gea makes. But when you go there, you also have to acknowledge what he does right. And what he does right vastly exceeds what he does wrong. Based on what I've seen of De Gea over the last 12 months, he's easily been one of the top keepers in the English prem. In truth, no keeper in the prem has been better over the last 12 months. If that's not good enough for some caftards, you're going to have a very hard time ever accepting ANY United keeper. And that goes beyond stupidity and enters the realm of spoiled petulance.
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It being "spoiled petulance" is contingent on accepting the premise that he has actually been the best goalkeeper in the League for the last 12 months. If everyone accepted that, there'd be no-one saying he wasn't good enough.

Orton said:
It's not 4 mistakes though, in your opinion it's 4. In most other's there was not much he could have done about the Mata and Wiemann goals. I need to re-watch every season's goals against then put Schmeichel and VDS under the de Gea scrutiny and come back to you, and I'm sure I'll find plenty of goals that were possibly preventable, but nobody would ask twice about them. The video was not regular mistakes either, it was howlers. De Gea has made one "howler" which led to a goal and that was against Fulham.
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I didn't include the Wiemann goal, I included only goals which were criticised as being mistakes by neutral observers (Fulham, Chelsea, Swansea, Newcastle).
 
Colin129 said:
You said he wasn't good enough for United didn't you?

So who is good enough & available?
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Practically any player is available if you offer enough money. I expect we'll persevere with DDG despite his flaws in the hope that one day he will be good enough that he can play for us without being constantly under the threat of being replaced.
 
Who was already world class in Hargreaves....

Hargreaves was very good in that position but world class just after one good Euro's is kinda over exaggerating stuff.

Let's say potentially world class, but was so injury prone he never fulfilled his potential.

And ever since we lost Hargreaves, we still haven't gotten his replacement. Though Clev's has come up, but in a big match where we need a battler, Fletcher doesn't have the stamina to win tackles and be box-to-box any more and Carrick's style defensively isn't like that and we should add a bit of grit in that MF.

.... Anyways back to DDG, how did daily mail make up that BS ***. SAF looking to buy begovic and Reina as replacements ? Thats insane and its only the dumb media that is trying to make the most of every mistake DDG makes, he is an insanely good 22 yr old GK and who doesn't see that obviously doesn't watch football and just tries to pick on him cuz of his huge price tag.
 
kietotheworld said:
Practically any player is available if you offer enough money. I expect we'll persevere with DDG despite his flaws in the hope that one day he will be good enough that he can play for us without being constantly under the threat of being replaced.
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In the same way we persevered with Giggs, Scholes, Beckham, Rooney, Ronaldo, Rafael and so on and so on in their youth, despite their flaws in the hope that they will be good enough for the club in the long term..
 
As soon as they put Reina in that 'piece', you just knew football fans all over the world started laughing at the nonsense. Begovic is an understandable name that we'll get linked with...as we did with Vorm last year, he's been the top man in goal in the league this season.

But, De Gea will carry on as a United player and they'll have filled a few empty gaps in the gossip columns.
 
kietotheworld said:
I didn't include the Wiemann goal, I included only goals which were criticised as being mistakes by neutral observers (Fulham, Chelsea, Swansea, Newcastle).
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What? Who the hell blamed him for that?

The ball was hit at him from pretty much point blank range, nothing he could have done about it. When a keeper makes a save like that it's down to luck as much as anything as to where the ball ends up, Vidic was more to blame than anyone which is understandable as he was coming back from injury.
 
The OPTA stats don't lie: David De Gea has been class this season and I'm sure everyone at the club can see that.

Half of these links will be generated by agents either looking to secure their client a move or a better deal from their current club. They latch on to the press cuttings and think 'De Gea's got a rep, I can link my guy with United and the cash will follow'. Its garbage.
 
Care_de_Bobo said:
What? Who the hell blamed him for that?
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Gary Neville did if I remember correctly, the guy who admitted that he is overly critical of goalkeepers,

Hate to be disrespectful to the guy but anyone with half a brain should be able to see it was not an error by de Gea- fired at that range with that pace, that close to his body- it's not the sort of save where you can control where the ricochet goes.

But hey why let that get in the way of piling on.
 
kietotheworld said:
It being "spoiled petulance" is contingent on accepting the premise that he has actually been the best goalkeeper in the League for the last 12 months. If everyone accepted that, there'd be no-one saying he wasn't good enough.
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That doesn't necessarily follow. De Gea cost United a transfer fee of 20m and with that comes exposure to criticism that has nothing to do with footballing ability. If he had cost United, say, 4m I have no doubt -- although I have no proof of this -- that he would have received far less criticism than he's actually been subjected to. There is something to be said for criticizing the decision to spend 20m on a promising but not yet the finished product keeper. I don't agree with that criticism but I understand where it's coming from. We'll look back someday at the decision to spend 20m and agree De Gea was steal, but right now to some people it just doesn't look that way. Fine.

My real objection to the criticism of De Gea isn't that some think we overspent for him when an established keeper could have been had for 10-15m, but that nearly every goal scored on De Gea has been scrutinized as a potential "mistake" by De Gea. Some of the early goals scored on him in the 11/12 season were indeed his fault -- Blackburn comes to mind and you can even argue the Dzeko goal in the Community Shield match (De Gea's first match for United) and the Shane Long goal (shot just outside the six yard box but it did get through De Gea) -- but the two goals De Gea is being flogged for now -- the two he deflected on the initial shot which were then followed up on by another striker -- were absolutely NOT his fault, not were the two goals West Ham scored on us over the weekend. Or at least, those kinds of goals happen to the likes of Casillas, Buffon and Hart all the time. Keepers can't control every shot perfectly and some balls, deflected on teh stretch, will be spilled. The "mistake" that was made in each of those instances was by the defender, who must always anticipate a worst case scenario and be at the ready to clear loose balls and at least be all over the crashing forward.

If you want to talk about "mistakes" this season aren't the obvious offenders our CB's? Yet there is no talk whatsoever of shipping out Evans or Smalling or Rio, quite rightly so. Talk of shipping out a keeper who has been arguably the best keeper in the English prem in calendar year 2012 is ridiculous.
 
It's not about his transfer fee, the reaction to de Gea has been much the same it was for Ben Foster and he cost about £1m.
 
Drainy said:
In the same way we persevered with Giggs, Scholes, Beckham, Rooney, Ronaldo, Rafael and so on and so on in their youth, despite their flaws in the hope that they will be good enough for the club in the long term..
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Brilliant post. Spot on.

What was it Fergie said? Something about people not being able to spot potential like he can.
 
kietotheworld said:
He stuck with Rafael in as much as he didn't sell him, but he often dropped him for more experienced players, don't forget that he couldn't consistently get ahead of Gary Neville right at the end of his career. As for Fletcher, Ferguson obviously has a soft spot for him, and at that time I don't think there was much money available to buy a replacement for him, as soon as he got the opportunity to replace him, however, Ferguson tried to by signing a player who was already world class in Hargreaves. Evans was definitely good enough to be a back-up for United at a very young age.

I get what you're driving at though, it's possible he has the potential to be an excellent goalkeeper, my argument is that he's not excellent now, and that people should stop pretending that he is or that any criticism of him is invalid. If a genuinely top class goalkeeper came onto the market now I don't doubt Ferguson would go after him.
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Rafael was an understudy of Neville, first and foremost. He was never ever going to be fully ready to take over and push Gazza aside while Gazza was still around. No way, not at this club nor at any other club. Would you expect a youngster at Bayern step in and take over Lahm's spot right now?

If SAF wanted a fully developed, world-class keeper, he'd gone for one the moment he knew when VDS was going to call it a day. This argument about money being available is anyone's guess but if you look at our spending the past seasons there's no doubt there has been money available for transfers and wages of higher demands.

Now I ask you this: Why didn't he do so but instead, went for a young, inexperienced (relatively speaking) keeper? Not only that, but one whom he paid well over 15m pounds for. You could argue it's a matter of wages and that de Gea wouldn't demand as much money but such argument becomes rather tricky to hold any ground - when you consider the money he offered RvP to ink a deal. So clearly there must have been something about de Gea that SAF and his coaches wanted to invest time and money in.

As much as you don't want people to be carried away by "disillusion" when evaluating de Gea's contribution (or lack of), likewise, people want you to understand that he's far from the finished product anyway so nitpicking on flaws this early during his career isn't very supportive at all and shows a distinct lack of appreciation.
 
kietotheworld said:
It's not about his transfer fee, the reaction to de Gea has been much the same it was for Ben Foster and he cost about £1m.
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But Foster committed several howlers of the highest order. De Gea has committed mistakes, but only one genuine howler -- the muff on the cross against Blackburn. Since then, and it was a bad mistake, De Gea has been sensational.

Not even De Gea's most strident critics would suggest Foster is anywhere near De Gea in quality.
 
Skywarden said:
Rafael was an understudy of Neville, first and foremost. He was never ever going to be fully ready to take over and push Gazza aside while Gazza was still around. No way, not at this club nor at any other club. Would you expect a youngster at Bayern step in and take over Lahm's spot right now?

If SAF wanted a fully developed, world-class keeper, he'd gone for one the moment he knew when VDS was going to call it a day. This argument about money being available is anyone's guess but if you look at our spending the past seasons there's no doubt there has been money available for transfers and wages of higher demands.

Now I ask you this: Why didn't he do so but instead, went for a young, inexperienced (relatively speaking) keeper? Not only that, but one whom he paid well over 15m pounds for. You could argue it's a matter of wages and that de Gea wouldn't demand as much money but such argument becomes rather tricky to hold any ground - when you consider the money he offered RvP to ink a deal. So clearly there must have been something about de Gea that SAF and his coaches wanted to invest time and money in.

As much as you don't want people to be carried away by "disillusion" when evaluating de Gea's contribution (or lack of), likewise, people want you to understand that he's far from the finished product anyway so nitpicking on flaws this early during his career isn't very supportive at all and shows a distinct lack of appreciation.
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That's complete bollocks to be fair, he was never the understudy of Neville, the position was rotated between O'Shea, Brown, Rafael and Neville most of the time until O'Shea made it his own. I wouldn't expect a youngster to take over Lahm because Lahm's extremely good, Neville wasn't, O'Shea wasn't, Brown was crocked. He played Rafael sometimes because he thought he had potential, but he certainly never wanted us relying on him, not until last season at least, and rightly so. It's more difficult with goalkeepers to have several players like we did at right back, because there's no other position they can fill (GNev, Brown and O'Shea could fill other positions) and injuries are a lot rarer.

If Ferguson wanted a fully developed World Class keeper he'd have had to spend a lot of money, and there weren't all that many around at the time. There were a lot of young lads who were after a move, but pretty much all the world class keepers were already at very big clubs and would've cost an awful lot, the exception being Reina, who had a release clause, but may not have wanted to come to us for obvious reasons. I don't think its wages so much as the amount needed to prise Buffon or Casillas or Cesar away from their clubs wouldn't have been anywhere near good value, and would have had no resale value.

Can you think of any world class keepers who we could have got in 2011 for a reasonable amount?

I understand that he's far from the finished product, at least I hope so, but when I point out a way he can improve and get closer to being the finished product I am the target of abuse from all the fools on here who can't accept that he's not World Class yet, think he's the best keeper in England and find excuses for literally every mistake he makes. Even when he parried the ball to Perch and caused Vidic's own goal against Fulham there were people blaming it on other things, "It was raining" or "He was pushed". If I come across as overly negative it's only because this forum is completely out of touch with reality when it comes to this player.

Ruud10 said:
But Foster committed several howlers of the highest order. De Gea has committed mistakes, but only one genuine howler -- the muff on the cross against Blackburn. Since then, and it was a bad mistake, De Gea has been sensational.

Not even De Gea's most strident critics would suggest Foster is anywhere near De Gea in quality.
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He wasn't that bad, he made 4 mistakes in 10 games, none of them were howlers of the highest order. As I recall he took too much time on the ball against City and then got beat at his near post, conceded a goal from Arshavin that he should have saved and was beaten to a cross by Kenwyn Jones. He was poor, he wasn't horrendous.
 
kietotheworld said:
That's complete bollocks to be fair, he was never the understudy of Neville, the position was rotated between O'Shea, Brown, Rafael and Neville most of the time until O'Shea made it his own. I wouldn't expect a youngster to take over Lahm because Lahm's extremely good, Neville wasn't, O'Shea wasn't, Brown was crocked. He played Rafael sometimes because he thought he had potential, but he certainly never wanted us relying on him, not until last season at least, and rightly so. It's more difficult with goalkeepers to have several players like we did at right back, because there's no other position they can fill (GNev, Brown and O'Shea could fill other positions) and injuries are a lot rarer.

If Ferguson wanted a fully developed World Class keeper he'd have had to spend a lot of money, and there weren't all that many around at the time. There were a lot of young lads who were after a move, but pretty much all the world class keepers were already at very big clubs and would've cost an awful lot, the exception being Reina, who had a release clause, but may not have wanted to come to us for obvious reasons. I don't think its wages so much as the amount needed to prise Buffon or Casillas or Cesar away from their clubs wouldn't have been anywhere near good value, and would have had no resale value.

Can you think of any world class keepers who we could have got in 2011 for a reasonable amount?

I understand that he's far from the finished product, at least I hope so, but when I point out a way he can improve and get closer to being the finished product I am the target of abuse from all the fools on here who can't accept that he's not World Class yet, think he's the best keeper in England and find excuses for literally every mistake he makes. Even when he parried the ball to Perch and caused Vidic's own goal against Fulham there were people blaming it on other things, "It was raining" or "He was pushed". If I come across as overly negative it's only because this forum is completely out of touch with reality when it comes to this player.



He wasn't that bad, he made 4 mistakes in 10 games, none of them were howlers of the highest order. As I recall he took too much time on the ball against City and then got beat at his near post, conceded a goal from Arshavin that he should have saved and was beaten to a cross by Kenwyn Jones. He was poor, he wasn't horrendous.
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I don't think anybody thinks he is the best keeper in England. Maybe in a few seasons time.
 
How is the first goal against City NOT a howler of the highest order? The ball was at his mercy and instead of booting it he allowed Tevez to steal it.
 
Orton said:
I don't think anybody thinks he is the best keeper in England. Maybe in a few seasons time.
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There are quite a few good keepers in this league, but the short list of top keepers would have to include De Gea, Hart and Begovic. Form over the last 12 months let's say, not 5 years. De Gea comes out looking pretty good compared to Hart, though I'll admit it's a close call between De Gea and Begovic.
 
Mistakes become more common when you have more chance to make them.

I'd be surprised if, considering the number of shots De Gea has had to deal with this season, the number of mistakes he's made were statistically out of line with our previous "United Quality" keepers. Even with Kie's BMA (Brilliant Mistake Analysis) I doubt it'd be as damning as he'd like us to believe.

To put it into context:

In the 13 PL games De Gea has played, he's faced 103 shots on target, which can be scaled up to 301 shots per season. [edited from 108 to 103]

In Van Der Sar's finale, we faced 193 shots on target in an entire season, with very similar numbers in at least his last 4 seasons.

[Pretty sure these numbers are accurate but I haven't double-checked].
 
I really don't get the bias against DDG in the media. They really REALLY want him to fail. It's the same rhetoric every time from them, it's tedious.

That transcript from Stelling is unfecking believable.

The crowed are getting on his back? Bollocks are they. I've not heard one criticism from any of the fan around me about him.

Also suggesting Given and Begovic to replace him, feck a duck. That's more retarded than what kie's been sprouting lately (and thats an achievement).
 
RK said:
Mistakes become more common when you have more chance to make them.

I'd be surprised if, considering the number of shots De Gea has had to deal with this season, the number of mistakes he's made were statistically out of line with our previous "United Quality" keepers. Even with Kie's BMA (Brilliant Mistake Analysis) I doubt it'd be as damning as he'd like us to believe.

To put it into context:

In the 13 PL games De Gea has played, he's faced 108 shots on target, which can be scaled up to 316 shots per season.

In Van Der Sar's finale, we faced 193 shots on target in an entire season, with very similar numbers in at least his last 4 seasons.

[Pretty sure these numbers are accurate but I haven't double-checked].
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On the other hand, he has less chances to make mistakes than most goalkeepers we're speaking about because he can't hold down a place in his own team.
IrishLegend said:
I really don't get the bias against DDG in the media.
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There isn't one.
 
I understand that he's far from the finished product, at least I hope so, but when I point out a way he can improve and get closer to being the finished product I am the target of abuse from all the fools on here who can't accept that he's not World Class yet, think he's the best keeper in England and find excuses for literally every mistake he makes
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The facts are that he has only made 3 clear errors this season- 2 that have cost us goals and one that he recovered due to his extraordinary reactions.

Fulham (H)- Very poor play, it was like he was in a day dream, and ran into the attacker without any awareness that he was there to block him off- very lax and was rightly slammed for it.

Newcastle (A)- got caught under the ball and lost the flight of it- managed to pull off an amazing reflex save to stop it going over the line.

Newcastle (H)- Very slack play to palm a fairly tame long range shot into an attacking player, albeit that it was in terrible conditions.

The two that you put in there that are complete bollocks that you are crying about getting pulled up on are

Chelsea (A)-where he took a step to his left to cover more of his goal and then got beaten by a great strike that curled just inside the post- Which is a 'hindsight is a wonderful thing' moment because covering more of the goal > covering half a goal.

Swansea (A)- The shot was taken at point blank range at a difficult angle and too close to his body for him to direct where the rebound was going to go. The fact that the next game he did make an error like what you claimed this was DID NOT prove you right, and you were being a feckwit to claim it 'showed a pattern' NO they were two different incidents with 2 different types of saves.

He's been inconsistent at dealing with crosses- as everyone already points out, but he's 22 playing in this country for only the second year- it's to be expected he'll be inconsistent or uncomfortable dealing with it while he adapts to a new style of football.. Be patient, stop being hypercritical (to the point of being ridiculous cough*Swansea*cough) and stop being butthurt when people call you out when you are acting ridiculously.
 
The one against Chelsea, yeah, it was a basic goalkeeping error, the wall and the goalkeeper have to cover different sides, if the wall doesn't jump and the ball goes in, or if Mata just beats the wall with a brilliant free kick, fair enough, keeper's not at fault, if he leaves his own side then only half of the goal is covered by anyone whatsoever so it's an easy goal. Especially if you make it clear where you're going to dive to by standing there right before he takes the free kick and jumping up and down. I'm not speaking with hindsight, I saw it coming before Mata even took the kick. I think we'll agree to disagree on this one.

The one against Newcastle at home was part of a pattern, he'd parried the ball a lot against City, he parried it against Swansea directly to one of the most prolific forwards in the country and he did it again against Newcastle. I said it was an area where he could improve and I was correct. Either that or it's all one great coincidence, you decide.

If it's to be expected that he'll be inconsistent and uncomfortable dealing with the new style of football there's no need to be upset when the media report that he is inconsistent and uncomfortable dealing with the new style of football. It's also to be expected that Manchester United might be considering acquiring a goalkeeper who isn't inconsistent and uncomfortable dealing with the style of football.
 
Another thing with Mata's goal is that keepers will always try to read players in their run up and kicking stance. Mata deliberately disguised it, and as I've said before, he outwitted De Gea with the "help" of a perfect free-kick.

It's a hindsight moment. De Gea made his decision based on the previous year, Mata's ability to pick out the goal by going over the wall and the disguise in the run up. He didn't get it right this time, but that type of instinct will save more goals than not in the future. In this case it's no more an error than having a penalty saved, in my opinion.
 
No we won't agree to disagree. You are wrong, as I have explained over and over and over. There is more chance of him conceding a goal is he stays on his post than if he covers as much of the goal as he can ergo it is the right call to cover the goal even if in hindsight the step is what cost the goal.

Your entire perspective on it is based on the bullshit "cover your ass" theory that is all too prevalent in Anglo Saxon cultures, the more intelligent way to go is what works most often...

If you seriously think any keeper could do better with the City and Swansea ones you need to get your head sorted. A Pattern? So if Joe Hart concedes 3 70mph thunderbolts to the top corner in the next few games he's weak at defending long shots? or maybe shit happens in football and incidents need to be judged on their own merits.. but then again you are so hypercritical that you probably would blame him right?

Again it's hyper criticism calling him 'Heurelho Gomes without the Shot Stopping' after a few weeks at the club, blaming him for every goal even when it's not his fault, mentioning how dodgy he is when he is doing fine and then ignoring whenever other goalkeepers make the same 'errors'.
 
Your bizarre attempt at cultural analysis aside, my argument is that the chances of him conceding are higher if he leaves one side undefended by going over to the area already covered by the wall. I've already explained how he could do better on the Swansea one, and the City one, well he did reasonably well to save it, but I'd like to see him improve directing where he parries the ball, it's an inoffensive comment if it was about any other goalkeeper.

The Gomes comment was pretty harsh, it was based on his first two games where he was awful and a stat about him conceding the most goals from outside the box in La Liga the previous season. Paddy Barclay is one man who went off at the deep end on United after he wrote his book about Ferguson, maybe the lunatic fringe have a point about him.
 
He's not leaving one side undefended. He's still got that side covered except for one with enough curl, pace and accuracy (extremely close to the post) to round him..

He's a human being, not a fecking air hockey pusher or one of those pong bars...

If you think at the range of around 10 yards a goalkeeper should be able to judge a well struck shot and move his arms into a position to push the ball out wide you are kidding yourself. There is not enough time to react and get your arms into position- you are not being constructive you are being ridiculous.
 
To be honest, even though I've posted in his defence in here, I'm not that bothered by the criticism of him. I genuinely don't see his long-term position under threat whatsoever, and any flaws that are apparently so apparent will only be improved - he seems mentally strong enough. Whichever way you look at it, he's already a decent keeper who'll become an excellent keeper.
 
Orton said:
Apparently there is no bias in the media against de gea, yet here is an article with numerous quotes from several media outlets writing him off from the start of his career here, and very little said about his second half to the season last year.

http://www.unitedrant.co.uk/opinion/de-gea-excells-and-now-comes-the-grudging-respect/

Probably been on here before but just putting it in here again.
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“OMG,” extolled BBC pundit Mark Bright on Twitter in August, “Man Utd cannot win the Premier League with de Gea.”
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Well that turned out to be true.

“Not every team will be as generous as West Bromwich Albion and there has to be a case for Anders Lindegaard to take over,” argued Taylor.

“The Dane is seven years older than De Gea, has a greater penalty-box presence and, when he played in the United States in pre-season, had the trust of his team-mates. The Premier League can be an unforgiving place and, rightly or wrongly, De Gea has already been identified as a ‘dodgy keeper’.”
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Definitely true, there was certainly a case for Lindegaard to start, given his experience in the UK and De Gea's obvious failings at the time. As it pointed out in the article and has been pointed out ad nauseum on here, he was having to adapt to a new country and that can harm his performances, why not put an experienced goalkeeper in? People accuse me of having an agenda against De Gea, I think a lot of people have an agenda against Lindegaard.

Meanwhile, in The Times, de Gea’s self-appointed critic-in-chief, and one-time Fergie biographer, Patrick Barclay described United’s new net-minder as “Heurelho Gomes with less shot-stopping skills.”

“The goalkeeper is like a jelly,” continued Barclay, in The Times‘ podcast last August. “I can’t see what he’s got. How on earth Ferguson and all his millions of coaches could have watched this boy week-in-week out and then signed him for the first team I just don’t know. It’s always a risk signing a goalkeeper from Spain, and Ferguson should have known this.”

“I’m looking forward to Man United versus Stoke,” Barclay added, with ill disguised glee.
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That's very unfair. I reckon he had some kind of falling out with Ferguson over his book, he was unbelievably negative about United on The Game following its publication.

“It is unclear whether the English lessons, with which his manager says he is progressing so well, have acquainted him with an understanding of the term “dodgy keeper” but when it was being blasted out only 35 minutes into his competitive English career yesterday it was hard not to fear for him. The Premier League has a way of finding a player’s weakness and offering no sanctuary.”
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Completely accurate.

“My record with underestimating how successful kids can be dreadful, but the crucial difference between the class of 1995 and Ferguson’s current crop is in the defence. It is too simple to say you will win nothing with a kid in goal, but it is a monumental challenge to ask a defence with an average age of 22 to go into games with the likes of Arsenal and Spurs.”
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This was true, it was a lot to ask and defensively we were pretty shaky against truly awful opposition.

I don't see any of those as "writing him off" except Barclay.
 
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