David de Gea | 2011-14 Performances

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Julian Denny said:
Lidegaard is older and has a greater presence physically. You feel he can deal with that side of things and I presume he can speak the language. De Gea has a huge amount oif time on his side - no need to plunge him into the deep end straight away when he may not yet be up to it.
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He is up to it. The manager is convinced of that. So is Eric Steele. It's sink or swim time for him.

You do not take a player who has played 100 games or so in the top division of a non-trivial league like Spain's as well as in Europe and put him in the reserves "to get used to the English league", especially with the reserves being what they are.

You gain nothing by it. We send our young reservists on loan ffs!

I just don't know how the hell you can think that.
 
It's very surprising because it seems that many posters have watched no Spanish football at all in the past two seasons if they are doubting de Gea's quality. He is a superb young goalkeeper, and it may take some time, but he will adapt, I promise.
 
gavoleary said:
Ever since Edin Dzeko scored the second goal in the Community Shield, exposing David De Gea to a long ranger he probably should have saved, the following stat has been widely cited about Manchester United’s new goalkeeper:

11 – David De Gea conceded more goals from outside the box than any other goalkeeper last season in La LigaBBVA

David DeGea - All goals conceded from outside the box.wmv - YouTube
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Some fecking shocking defending in there.


Anyway, while the he conceded most goals from outside the box stat is touted about a lot something that isn't as high profile but is equally as valid is that he saved the most shots from outside the box last season as well.
 
Didn't he also make the most saves from long distance shots in the league? I may have been misinformed but that's what I heard.

Edit: Already posted. Best just ignore me at all times really.
 
Orton said:
Did you even read the previous page in this thread and watch the video of the 11 he conceded? Probably not.
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No sorry I didn't. I didn't read all 40 pages to stumble across a post on page 39.
Did I waste some of your time with my post?

Anyways . . . . .

The point is that this kid has so much time, potential and managerial backing that when you look at the quality of long range goals that beat him last year you can't help but think that the 2 mistakes for United are jitters.

Of those 11, 8/9 were proper quality goals.

For Orton, I apoligise if this was also mentioned somewhere else on the forum/internet and I am wasting your time.
 
peterstorey said:
Nope, because he had a rep for letting in long rangers they took a lot of speculative pot-shots most of which were rubbish and he duly saved.
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Or Atlético's defense is a bit shit and invite a lot of long shots resulting in a lot of saves and a few slipping through.
 
Scrumpet said:
Or Atlético's defense is a bit shit and invite a lot of long shots resulting in a lot of saves and a few slipping through.
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Which fits with yet another stat about him saving more shots from INSIDE the box than any other keeper.

Unless taking shots at Atletico's goal from anywhere on the pitch was all just a sneaky ruse to unsettle their keeper.
 
Stats tell you very little about football on the whole. Whenever I've seen him he has looked like a top keeper unlike Neuer or Stekelenburg who I hoped you might buy.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Which fits with yet another stat about him saving more shots from INSIDE the box than any other keeper.

Unless taking shots at Atletico's goal from anywhere on the pitch was all just a sneaky ruse to unsettle their keeper.
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Dodgy keeper= take pot shots from wherever. Hackney marshes strategy.
 
Julian Denny said:
Lidegaard is older and has a greater presence physically. You feel he can deal with that side of things and I presume he can speak the language. De Gea has a huge amount oif time on his side - no need to plunge him into the deep end straight away when he may not yet be up to it.
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He's also not as good a goalkeeper as the Spaniard.

De Gea at age 20 is Spain's 4th choice goalkeeper (despite being better than the number 1 for 2 straight seasons, but what the hell), performance wise in the world the few that have been better than him are Reina, Valdes, Cech, Van Der Sar, Neuer and, erm... that's about it.

You don't put a player that good in the reserves.
 
peterstorey said:
Dodgy keeper= take pot shots from wherever. Hackney marshes strategy.
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I'd say it's fairly standard practice in football at any level to take a crack at goal whenever the opportunity arises*. The fact Atletico's goal seems to have been peppered from all angles and distances would say more about their defence than their keeper.



*unless you're on the pay-roll of Arsenal Football Club
 
marcus agrippa said:
You overestimate the quality of reserve team football.

This is a player who has been in the Spanish top flight, and in European competition. He is not just any 20 year-old.

Also, big contradiction when you bring up Lindegaard. He might be older, but he has not that much experience in the English league either.
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Less than de Gea.

Julian Denny said:
Its not regardless anything. It would have been the best move. Now he's under almost intolerable pressure for someone so young. He may very well be a great keeper in the making but he's only 20 for crying out loud with no experience of the physicality of the English game. At times the lack of communication with the back four was obvious last Sunday. I feel for him, as we all do, but letting him go on until his confidence his totally destroyed will be a huge error.
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Two options:

1.) Stick with him, realizing that he's going to have to gain the experience at some point. Support him, accept the errors, embrace the brilliance, identify that he is still very much a work in progress, and carry on as champions do.

2.)Drop him to the reserves, which is about the quickest route to destroying any confidence, after two appearances (and less than a month) at his new club.
 
Miguel Delaney: Goalkeepers are different, as De Gea is finding - ESPN Soccernet

Edwin van der Sar couldn't believe what he was seeing. This was new and it was not necessarily better.

David de Gea
A torrid start to his United career has raised questions about his recruitment
The venue, though, wasn't the Hawthorns last week or Wembley the previous Sunday.

Rather, it was the 18-yard box on his very first game for Juventus in 1999. In good faith, Van der Sar attempted one of his routine Ajax passes to the centre-half. He had, after all, been told in negotiations that Juventus would adapt the Dutch style in order to integrate their new goalkeeper.

However, on receiving the ball, defender Paolo Montero panicked, pummelled it away and then proceeded to berate Van der Sar. On the line, manager Carlo Ancelotti was doing the same.

The Dutchman was soon nicknamed 'Van der Gol' and routinely mocked by Italian media. As David Winner tells the story, "within a year he was consulting a therapist and telling his agent he no longer trusted himself even to catch a ball."

Given Van der Sar's unflappable image at Manchester United, the anecdote should put a different perspective on David De Gea's anxious first two games for the club. The Spaniard has, admittedly, made at least two awful errors. But, like Van der Sar back then, he's also had to get used to a new country and a new culture. One of the most striking images during United's 2-1 win over West Brom was Phil Jones - a teenage defender - physically illustrating to the keeper how he should spread his elbows when claiming an aerial ball in English football.

De Gea, of course, is only 20. At Juventus in the summer of 1999, Van der Sar was 28. But the Dutchman still had to go to the less demanding surrounds of Fulham to effectively remember how to be a goalkeeper and rebuild his confidence.

The issue raises a wider point about young goalkeepers and world-class level - either in terms of club or quality  goalkeepers. Unlike in almost every other position, the two don't coalesce that often.

Tellingly, Van der Sar's career path has been copied by a lot of talented - if not, at that point, top-class - goalkeepers. Jens Lehmann, for example, endured an equally difficult spell at AC Milan before recovering his game at Borussia Dortmund.

On initially doing enough to earn a move to a top club, many good young goalkeepers have often then had to escape them because their confidence was being eroded by the pressure.

Van Der Sar was 28 when he suffered a career crisis at Juventus
GettyImagesVan Der Sar was 28 when he suffered a career crisis at Juventus
With foreign goalkeepers such as De Gea, there are a number of external factors like the language barrier and basic acclimatisation. But, essentially, the problem is experience. At a big club where every error is exaggerated because of the importance of each result and isolation of the position, goalkeepers need an awful lot of experience to complement their existing talent.

Firstly, to block out the sound and fury long enough to make correct decisions; secondly, to draw on past experiences to make even better ones and finally, in the event that they don't, to help cope with criticism.

As Pat Jennings has explained, "the game is easy. It's when you get in front of big crowds and something's at stake... that's when the mental side comes in."

Peter Schmeichel backed this up recently, declaring that - at Manchester United - "You can look at young good players but you don't want that... that position has to be filled by someone who is of the very, very highest quality but also the right experience."

At a formative stage of their careers in a position that demands utmost concentration, young keepers are often too fragile. And not just mentally. As Alex Stepney said when talking about Ben Foster two years ago, "you have to be strong and, if necessary, take out the forward."

It was notable in the second half against West Brom that De Gea was so easily fouled when claiming a ball. His physique needs to be filled out. But then he perhaps hasn't yet stopped growing.

On that, it has been an anomaly over the last decades for goalkeepers to reach anywhere near world-class status before their late twenties. The only exceptions have arguably been Iker Casillas, Gigi Buffon, Petr Cech and - before Juventus - Van der Sar. All matched the very best in the world by the age of 22. But then all were special cases.

Cech was said to have a rare focus as a young man. "I don't do nervous", he declared at 22. His game was notable for its near-total lack of errors. And even the Czech gushed about Buffon, "he relays his confidence to his defence... his consistency level is amazing." Along the same lines, John Toshack described a teenage Casillas as "a kid with the brain of an old man".

Even then, though, both Casillas and Van der Sar were already at big clubs who had invested a lot of time in nurturing them. And Casillas was also at Real Madrid at a unique time in their history.

With the Galactico project gradually leaving the first XI increasingly unbalanced, Casillas was often "overexposed and under-protected". Many goalkeeping coaches argue, however, that this is better for a young goalkeeper as it keeps them busy without thinking while simultaneously building their confidence. Buffon certainly reckons so. He claims picking Parma first was the most important decision of his career: "I had no time to think things through so I acted on instinct."

On the other side of things, Victor Valdes is an example of a keeper who has progressively matured to world-class level.

But the deeper question in all of this, then, is why Sir Alex Ferguson opted for promise instead of proven experience? Might it yet be an unnecessary risk to United's season? While any further De Gea errors are clearly forgivable in that context, Ferguson's in actually buying him wouldn't quite be the same.

But the reason he has is because all at Old Trafford are convinced that the recent slips have been no more than aberrations. De Gea is considered to be another Casillas, to have both the talent and mentality to overcome any shortfall in experience. And many of the most learned voices in Spain echo this.

One of De Gea's formative influences, former Atletico Madrid goalkeeper Abel Resino, certainly did to The Guardian recently: "David has always been so self-assured - so confident in his own ability."

There was one caveat though: "If nothing odd happens, he will succeed. He is only 20; he will reach his peak at 30. There is loads of time."

Except when it comes to the exaggerated expectations of a very top club, time is rarely afforded.
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Pogue Mahone said:
Which fits with yet another stat about him saving more shots from INSIDE the box than any other keeper.

Unless taking shots at Atletico's goal from anywhere on the pitch was all just a sneaky ruse to unsettle their keeper.
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I agree with you on this. Looking at it from a glass half fall perspective, we should focus on the fact that De Gea is difficult to beat from inside the box. :devil:
 
I hope he gets a fantastic reception tonight, and we keep a clean sheet. A few tidy saves to up his confidence levels would also do nicely.
 
Ideally it would be nice for him to be involved early. It's taken some time for him to see some action in his first two matches.
 
He'll be fine. He seems like a very calm, assured young guy. Pressure won't be a new thing to him, although he may be shocked at how vicious the British press can be. The club will look after him.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
It's a bit odd with keepers. I'm torn between hoping he has a really good game and hoping he's a total bystander. On balance, I'd prefer the latter.
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Nah, I'm hoping he has plenty to do and shows everyone what he's made of.

Standing doing feck all wont exactly build his confidence.
 
Spurs to target de Gea

Tottenham left-back Benoit Assou-Ekotto says Spurs will attempt to pile the pressure on Manchester United goalkeeper David De Gea at Old Trafford on Monday night.

De Gea finds himself in the spotlight after making a hesitant start to life as Edwin van der Sar's replacement. The £17.8 million goalkeeper was at fault for Edin Dzeko's goal in the Community Shield clash with Manchester City at Wembley, and then he allowed Shane Long's soft shot to squirm past him during the Premier League win at West Brom.

Fortunately for the Spaniard, United have got him out of trouble on both occasions, but on Monday De Gea must play a competitive match in front of his home fans for the first time.

Spurs are yet to play a Premier League match after their opener against Everton was called off, but they played some exceptional football in the midweek 5-0 drubbing of Hearts. Assou-Ekotto confirmed his team-mates are confident, and they will do their best to expose De Gea's fragility.

"We will try to take advantage of these problems he's had," the left-back said in the Sun. "When you come to England you have to learn quickly how we play here.

"It is never easy in the first six months."

Monday's game also sees the home debut of Ashley Young, whose shot let to United's own-goal winner against West Brom, but Assou-Ekotto is not overly impressed with the winger. The Cameroonian wants Spurs to go out and play the match just like a normal game.

"We used to play against [Young] when he was at Aston Villa and we did okay against him then," Assou-Ekotto said. "So it will be the same against Manchester United - he's not better just because he has changed clubs.

"Young and Nani are both good players, but they are still only human. I really don't care who I play against from Manchester United."
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Benoit Assou-Ekotto: Tottenham to target Man United's David De Gea - ESPN Soccernet
 
Blair said:
Nah, I'm hoping he has plenty to do and shows everyone what he's made of.

Standing doing feck all wont exactly build his confidence.
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If he starts every game between now and the end of the season and never has another save to make then I'll be delighted.

Of course, this won't happen. Meanwhile, I'm certainly not going to sit there watching a game, wishing our keeper was more involved.

He'll get action at some point regardless but the less the better, obviously. The first and only priority I have for him tonight (which he, presumably, shares) is keeping a clean sheet.
 
I'm hoping for a game in which he gets a few, quite decent saves to make, keeps a clean sheet, gets some easy food to deal with from crosses and distributes well to help get his confidence going.
 
Assou-Ekotto: We will actually tro to score goals vs United.

Naaah, not sure I believe him. Heard that one before.
 
A very good first half for him. He has had to make 4-5 saves and he has caught everything too, as in he did not punch anything way. That one small moment with VDV was nervous but he did well.
 
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