It was a throwaway comment as you said, not intended as some deep insight. Which is why I probably have 'defended it so poorly', because it wasn't some great point I was trying to argue, as I said, it's purely speculative, and therefore I don't feel the need to defend it to the hilt.
It's not based on yesterday alone, I've continually referenced the start of the season as well. The reason I think he is not perhaps the most self assured player naturally is the way he reacts to either errors or good stops, he feeds off the personal reactions of his defenders and I think their support is important to his performances if you look at the way they communicate with him when he makes a good stop, instead of waving them off like some keepers do he seems to revel in that.
It's not based on any evidence and is just one interpretation, therefore I have no issue if others disagree. Given the fact it is speculative and was not overly relevant to the point I was trying to make, I don't really see any merit in me trying to debate it further, as I don't see what possible conclusion we could reach given that both our views are just our own insights based on watching him play. I don't particularly take issue with any of the points you've made, but equally I don't think it's outlandish to say that he's someone that plays better on the back of good performances.
Edit: The reason I think he benefited from training is that I think his later performances were better than his early ones, and I think that's likely to be because they would have focused on issues like collecting crosses and once he had improved those areas he felt more confident doing so in a match situation. It could well have been an organic improvement of his own making, but I think there's likely to have been some Steele input there as well. That was the kind of training I was referring to, not 'life confidence' training or whatever.
It might have been a speculative statement, how would I know though? All I read is what you wrote. But regardless of whether it was speculative or completely thought out, I was only asking why you had that view. You said he was a confidence player and didn’t strike you as a self assured person, in a thread where no one else had brought up his mentality, and seeing as I’ve never seen anyone else hold that view, I was curious whether there was anything to substantiate that opinion. I wasn’t expecting you to defend it to the hilt, just provide some actual content on why you’ve come to that conclusion, in the same way I did for my opinion.
Anyway, you’re basing him not being self assured on the way he interacts with his team mates when he makes a good save? Honestly, I don’t see how you can draw any conclusions whatsoever from that. Keepers for every team in the league celebrate when they save a penalty, or make a decent stop, so De Gea’s no different. Plus, he’s new at the club and has been receiving mass criticism in the press, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the dressing room was rallied around him in support.
Also, to provide a comparison to other United players, Valencia shows very little emotion when he scores or assists, he offers little interaction with his team mates and certainly doesn’t ‘feed off the personal reactions’ of other players. In contrast, Hernandez seems to relish it. But I’d consider Hernandez a much more confident player than Valencia, which is the complete opposite of your conclusion, applying that logic.
I’m still surprised that reasoning’s enough to override the presumption that he’s perfectly self assured, which comes naturally when you look at his career to date. As I said before, he’s been starting for one of the biggest teams in the world at age 20, in a position which normally requires experience. You don’t succeed to that extent without self belief, it seems strange to suggest otherwise. In addition the way he’s conducted himself in coming back from early mistakes and ignored the widespread criticism in the press, which seemed to actually spur him on, backs up this view. Finally, the fact that SAF has a history of protecting young players and only playing them when they’re mentally ready, shows that Fergie thinks there’s nothing wrong with his confidence, otherwise he wouldn’t have played, particularly when there is an able substitute in Lindegaard. I agree we should leave this though, it's going in circles.
Nope, it’s not outlandish to say he's someone that plays better on the back of good performances, that isn’t what you said though, and it’s not what I asked you about. We’ve been through this.
As for the training thing, not to be pedantic but in a conversation about De Gea’s confidence you said,
‘the nerves of starting in a new league and looking a bit unsure in front of an alien team... continued for a few games. Obviously he moved on from this after a few weeks, but I think that's because it would have been worked on seriously behind the scenes’. That reads as though you were on about some sort of confidence coaching, it’s pretty clear.
But regardless, it doesn’t hold up if you’re talking about goalkeeper coaching anyway. You think his subsequent performances were better than his early ones, due to the benefits of coaching for dealing with crosses etc. Well, how does that explain Blackburn then, in which he made mistakes coming for crosses? Surely the benefit of continued training would have made these mistakes obsolete by now? What about Basel away, where he failed to deal with the cross for their first goal? It’s obvious his better games weren’t down to training, otherwise the good games would be constant. Like I said before, I think your doing him a disservice, he played well because he’s a great keeper. His improvements after West Brom weren’t down to the coaching staff, they were down to De Gea, the mistakes in the first two games weren’t a reflection on his true ability, they were just quite simply mistakes, which are to be expected off all young players.
