[Pogue Mahone]

What does it mean to look like not being able to save a pen ?

It means feck all.

Although it's all part of the bigger picture. He lacks presence. Top keepers make the goal look small and penalties that much more difficult to score. De Gea - on this seasons form - makes the goals look big and penalties never in doubt.

 

[Renegade81]

I honestly think he is capable of much better. Even before the game i was watching us doing drills and Falcao and Di Maria put a few past De Gea and his lack of effort for any shots on target were very disheartening. Read somewhere a while back that when fergie was here he had a promblem with his visual (maybe bull) but could this actually be his problem, i say this as this is the only plausable reason to me as to why he seems to makes no effort to attempt some saves. To him they look like they are going wide maybe? Could his short/ long sight be at fault. He always seems a second or two too late, maybe just me. Its hard to believe that the reason De Gea is conceding so many is because our opposition are putting worldies past him weekly.

 

[bishblaize]

He is slow off his line...

On this particular point, I noticed this last season, I think there was a deliberate change in approach to how he'd been previously. He also worked with a new GK coach and I wondered whether this was a specific instruction that he'd received?

 

[ottosec]

Probably my favorite player, but he's been average at best this season. Sure, some will say he was not at fault at any of the goals and maybe they are correct, but I expect better from a top GK.

Also looks dodgy coming out of his line and that is essential in our new setup, he was very lucky last game when he fecked it up at 1-0 and could have cost us.

He's already shipped in more than 2 goals/game this season and he needs to step up his game. I genuinely can't think of a top save he made this season.

 

[Decotron]

I've disagreed with @Ducklegs about a lot of stuff before but share his concerns on this one. His specific criticisms are all completely valid IMO. As he says, though, De Gea can address them in the long term but that's really not ideal.

I mean, De Gea might be yong and lernin but goalkeeper is one position where sticking with someone through a learning curve can really feck a team over. Look at Tim Howard. I'd say he's arguably a better keeper than De Gea is right now but when he was much younger, Fergie got rid because he knew we couldn't carry a keeper who was still learning the game.

I can see the concerns but he deserves the benefit of the doubt.

With so much uncertainty on front of him the constant changing of centre halves it cant be easy. Add in a new manager with a totally different mind-set on what a keepers role should be. Plus yet another new goalkeeping coach.

That's enough for me to forgive anything I see for the moment.

there's a thread in the newbies saying he should be dropped in favour of Lindergard

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I can see the concerns but he deserves the benefit of the doubt.

With so much uncertainty on front of him the constant changing of centre halves it cant be easy. Add in a new manager with a totally different mind-set on what a keepers role should be. Plus yet another new goalkeeping coach.

That's enough for me to forgive anything I see for the moment.

there's a thread in the newbies saying he should be dropped in favour of Lindergard

Yeah, those are valid excuses for him to be below his best.

I haven't been entirely convinced by him before, though. Even last season when he was generally very good, I wasn't happy with some aspects of his game. Particularly his footwork and apparent reluctance to come of his line. Everyone spent so much time taking the piss out of Joe Hart, it was as though De Gea can do no wrong. Ditto Chesney at Arsenal.

Meanwhile, there's been a whole bunch of games where those two have pulled off a string of top saves and been the difference between winning and losing for their teams. If we're really honest to ourselves, how many games can we think of in the last two seasons where that could describe a performance from De Gea? One? Two? And it's not as though he's not been seeing much of the ball. IMO there's been a worrying amount of games where we've conceded a lot of goals, from relatively few shots at our goal*. And that's not even getting into the lack of organisation throughout our defence.




*Some stats from last season on saves/shots.

Dave doesn't even make the top 10.

 

[Dans]

Did he make a save yesterday?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

More stats, again from last season. Number of saves/goal conceded.

Again, not in the top 10.

In fact, his highest finish in all those stats is a table where the lower down you finish the better!

Link

 

[iBoss]

More stats, again from last season. Number of saves/goal conceded.

Again, not in the top 10.

In fact, the only table in which he does make the top 10 are tables where the lower down you finish the better!

Link

Useless stats without any context.

Some of the players on there are gash as well.

 

[united_99]

Our defense is a shambles and has been for 3 years now. Mourinho bought P. Luis - who was part of Europe's best defense last season - but hardly plays him. This way Courtois can get use to the same back 4, and an experienced and much better one than ours, too. While our defenders always are in and out through injuries, are on top of that young and actually not that good. Then we keep changing formations AND LvG wants him to play in a completely different way than Moyes did last season.

So as bad as he has been, he has the best excuses for his performance. Give him Chelsea's defense and Mourinho's defensive organisation and you won't see 5 goals conceded against a promoted team!

 

[Pyroblazer]

So now we reached a point, where we are rewriting history and are saying that De Gea's last 2 seasons weren't brilliant? And I hate stats, they are so useless without any context and can't replace what we all see on the pitch. How can someone say that he saved our ass in only 2 games? Come on. Why did they vote him best goalkeeper in the PL 2 seasons ago? And he would be a good candidate last year too, if we wouldn't have finish 7th imo. Also the biggest difference between Dave and for example Hart or Chesny is that Dave did barely any big mistakes the last 2 seasons. Give me a stat for that, Hart and Chesny would be on top of the table in a "silly mistake" list. Dave did what? That one mistake in the Carling Cup. Even someone like Courtois made more howlers than him.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

So now we reached a point, where we are rewriting history and are saying that De Gea's last 2 seasons weren't brilliant? And I hate stats, they are so useless without any context and can't replace what we all see on the pitch. How can someone say that he saved our ass in only 2 games? Come on. Why did they vote him best goalkeeper in the PL 2 seasons ago? And he would be a good candidate last year too, if we wouldn't have finish 7th imo. Also the biggest difference between Dave and for example Hart or Chesny is that Dave did barely any big mistakes the last 2 seasons. Give me a stat for that, Hart and Chesny would be on top of the table in a "silly mistake" list. Dave did what? That one mistake in the Carling Cup. Even someone like Courtois made more howlers than him.

History is in the eye of the beholder and I personally thought De Gea wasn't brilliant last season. Lots of posts in this thread from me saying exactly that. By no means poor and a lot of good performances. Especially a big improvement under the high ball. He did have his flaws though and I genuinely struggle to think of many games we won where you could point to a string of good saves from De Gea being the difference between winning and losing. Maybe a couple, at most.

 

[Rado_N]

Goalkeeper is probably the position where stats are of the least use in judging a players performance.

In fact I'd go as far as to say that stats are of absolutely zero use whatsoever in judging a goalkeeper.

That said, he's definitely regressed a bit, probably due to a complete lack of confidence in the people in front of him.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Useless stats without any context.

Some of the players on there are gash as well.

Here's a context. They're all from competitive games played against Premier League opposition.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Goalkeeper is probably the position where stats are of the least use in judging a players performance.

In fact I'd go as far as to say that stats are of absolutely zero use whatsoever in judging a goalkeeper.

That said, he's definitely regressed a bit, probably due to a complete lack of confidence in the people in front of him.

Agree with your first sentence, disagree with the second.

Saves/shot is about as useful as pass completion or chance conversion IMO. Doesn't tell you everything about a player but if you have a player with stats that are significantly worse than his peers, it is cause for concern. Especially if you're analysing data from an entire season's worth of games.

I also think you can forgive a low save % if you know the keeper makes up for it with other aspects of his game. Controlling his area, distribution, organisation, ability to act as a sweeper when his team plays a high line. None of these are things you would say De Gea is particularly strong at. If anything, the opposite. Which is grand if he was a brilliant shot-stopper but - according to these stats - he's not as good a shot-stopper as we might think.

 

[Speak]

I have to agree with Pogue that last season people were so busy taking the piss out of Joe Hart that suddenly De Gea could do no wrong.
The idea that people had for ages that Joe Hart is woeful at kicking, while De Gea is some sort of ball-playing king, for example.

When I've seen De Gea shank at least one simple roll-back and/or punt it off the pitch almost every game.

 

[FlawlessThaw]

I have to agree with Pogue that last season people were so busy taking the piss out of Joe Hart that suddenly De Gea could do no wrong.

To be fair Hart was making mistakes that was costing City points before he initially got dropped. De Gea didn't do that which is why he completely ousted Lindegaard to the number 1 spot.

I think there are right to be concerns over De Gea, the most valid point is that he hasn't been a great "matchwinner" in the past couple of years. However having stable defence which we haven't had for 3 years now is much more of a bigger concern.

 

[Rado_N]

Agree with your first sentence, disagree with the second.

Saves/shot is about as useful as pass completion or chance conversion IMO. Doesn't tell you everything about a player but if you have a player with stats that are significantly worse than his peers, it is cause for concern. Especially if you're analysing data from an entire season's worth of games.

I also think you can forgive a low save % if you know the keeper makes up for it with other aspects of his game. Controlling his area, distribution, organisation, ability to act as a sweeper when his team plays a high line. None of these are things you would say De Gea is particularly strong at. If anything, the opposite. Which is grand if he was a brilliant shot-stopper but - according to these stats - he's not even that.

An outfield player has far more control over his pass completion stats than a keeper does over his saves/shots stats, though.

As I said I'm not arguing that he's regressed, but the stats won't show you how woefully exposed he's been the last season and a bit.

 

[Pexbo]

Yeah, those are valid excuses for him to be below his best.

I haven't been entirely convinced by him before, though. Even last season when he was generally very good, I wasn't happy with some aspects of his game. Particularly his footwork and apparent reluctance to come of his line. Everyone spent so much time taking the piss out of Joe Hart, it was as though De Gea can do no wrong. Ditto Chesney at Arsenal.

Meanwhile, there's been a whole bunch of games where those two have pulled off a string of top saves and been the difference between winning and losing for their teams. If we're really honest to ourselves, how many games can we think of in the last two seasons where that could describe a performance from De Gea? One? Two? And it's not as though he's not been seeing much of the ball. IMO there's been a worrying amount of games where we've conceded a lot of goals, from relatively few shots at our goal*. And that's not even getting into the lack of organisation throughout our defence.




*Some stats from last season on saves/shots.

Dave doesn't even make the top 10.

To be fair, it's not as obvious a statistic as it might first seem. Considering how many of our goals come from opportunities where strikers find themselves in a position where they'd be foolish to miss.

Our defence is constantly leaving DDG in one on one situations and his statistics are going to be heavily skewed by that.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

An outfield player has far more control over his pass completion stats than a keeper does over his saves/shots stats, though.

As I said I'm not arguing that he's regressed, but the stats won't show you how woefully exposed he's been the last season and a bit.

Aye, that's true but again it's a big sample size. We're so used to being in the top four we do kind of forget that 7th isn't that bad. As you can see, De Gea's stats are a lot worse than a number of keepers from 8th place and lower. I doubt they got much more protection. Plus Moyes was hammered for his negativity. It's not as though we played gung ho football with a really high line and loads of wide open spaces at the back (which, to be fair, does seem to be happening this season).

 

[Massive Spanner]

The long shots conceded are particularly misleading, because our lack of any coherent midfield gave the opposition endless opportunities to take their time and pick out the perfect spot in the net.

You give a Premiership footballer time on the ball and there won't be much the keeper can do a lot of the time.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

To be fair, it's not as obvious a statistic as it might first seem. Considering how many of our goals come from opportunities where strikers find themselves in a position where they'd be foolish to miss.

Our defence is constantly leaving DDG in one on one situations and his statistics are going to be heavily skewed by that.

Is that unique to our defence? What about the 12 clubs who did worse than us in the league last season? Were they really protecting their keepers that much better than we did?

 

[Pyroblazer]

Stats didn't show us much here, because the defence affect those statistics. You can't blame De Gea when he save several shots and then conceded a goal because our defence did a horrible mistake. If De Gea saves 20 out of 40 shots, he is much worse than Cech, who saved 3 out of 4. And I don't even know how shots, who didn't need a save, affect those stats. But the main difference is just that Chelsea had a good defence in front of him, where Cech has not much to do and De Gea is/was in consistent trouble. Minutes without a goal are nice, but in most cases it's more a sign for a fantastic defence than a brilliant goalkeeper imo.
Mignolet is another example who is completely missing on those lists, but while he is awful so far this season, he wasn't last year, but like United Pool's defence was horrible, even worse than ours, so again not a surprise that he can't look good in those stats.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Stats didn't show us much here, because the defence affect those statistics. You can't blame De Gea when he save several shots and then conceded a goal because our defence did a horrible mistake. If De Gea saves 20 out of 40 shots, he is much worse than Cech, who saved 3 out of 4. And I don't even know how shots, who didn't need a save, affect those stats. But the main difference is just that Chelsea had a good defence in front of him, where Cech has not much to do and De Gea is/was in consistent trouble. Minutes without a goal are nice, but in most cases it's more a sign for a fantastic defence than a brilliant goalkeeper imo.
Mignolet is another example who is completely missing on those lists, but while he is awful so far this season, he wasn't last year, but like United Pool's defence was horrible, even worse than ours, so again not a surprise that he can't look good in those stats.

Shots that aren't on target don't count.

I think Mignolet is a bit crap actually. Not good enough for a team with aspirations of winning the league. Can see him being moved on soon enough.

 

[Pexbo]

Is that unique to our defence? What about the 12 clubs who did worse than us in the league last season?

I'm not saying it's unique to us, I'm just saying that you have to take into consideration the type of goal we always seem to concede. It's an equivalent argument to what you had about Assist's vs Goals stats.

If you have Ronaldo or Messi on the end of your passes, you'll get more assists.

Well if a higher percentage of the shots on target come from gifts from our defence where the attacker has time to put a good shot away, then the keeper will have less chance of saving them and their saves/shots ratio will reflect that.


Come on Pogue, you of all people are surely not going to argue that a statistic is telling the whole truth?

 

[Invictus]

More stats, again from last season. Number of saves/goal conceded.

Again, not in the top 10.

In fact, his highest finish in all those stats is a table where the lower down you finish the better!

Not a fan of these kind of stats personally. If one looks at the top half, it's full of some truly awful keepers. I mean - Boruc, Adrian, Speroni really ?

A much better comparison for De Gea would be Thibaut Courtois from this season (because they're of about the same age and stage in their progression) or Petr Cech from last season (who is the benchmark for keepers in the league despite the relative decline in his ability). We have to look at bulk saves. Saves/ goal conceded is misleading because it's not just the keeper's responsibility. Yeah superficially it kind of is but the whole defense if not the whole team has to shoulder the blame, a keeper can only do so much.

In 5 league games this season De Gea and Courtois have made an identical 1.4 saves per game compared to 1.53 per game for Cech last season. De Gea also has deceptively good distribution compared to them. It's 71 % for David this season, 54 % for Courtois and 60 % for Cech last season.

De Gea is getting used to a new system right now, both Van Gaal and Hoek are fans of cerebral training and controlling spaces. Prior to this season David was used to Rio and Vida sitting deep and he had to resort to punts as a means of expansive distribution. This has changed with Hoek who wants him to be like his former proteges Van der Sar and Valdes, a goalkeeper yes but almost an outfield player who's comfortable with the ball at his feet. De Gea has to unlearn a lot of what he was taught through the last 3 seasons and that is a time consuming process. This leads to uncertainty because it's kind of alien to him and what Steele/ Wood professed has become second nature to him. Once he does imbibe everything we'll see a much better keeper who'll far exceed the De Gea of 2012/ 2013, which for me was his peak so far.

People are also forgetting that he's just 23, a bambi of the goalkeeping world. Very few top clubs have such young keepers because there's a massive maturation curve. De Gea is going through it right now and will get over the relative bumps. It's unfair to compare him to our past keepers in terms of leadership ability. Schmeichel was almost 30 when we signed him and Van der Sar was almost 35. Even some of the greats including Edwin (endured a horror time at Juventus behind Buffon) and Casillas (dropped in favor of Sanchez) went through it.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I'm not saying it's unique to us, I'm just saying that you have to take into consideration the type of goal we always seem to concede. It's an equivalent argument to what you had about Assist's vs Goals stats.

If you have Ronaldo or Messi on the end of your passes, you'll get more assists.

Well if a higher percentage of the shots on target come from gifts from our defence where the attacker has time to put a good shot away, then the keeper will have less chance of saving them and their saves/shots ratio will reflect that.


Come on Pogue, you of all people are surely not going to argue that a statistic is telling the whole truth?

Not at all. This is the same way I always use stats. I make my own opinion clear, then try to see if the stats fit in with what I've noticed.

If they do, I think my opinion carries a little more weight (not much but definitely a little). If they don't, I might start to question it. Ultimately, though, it's my opinion that's the main thing when I'm talking about how highly I rate any player. Of course, my opinion (and yours) is likely to be just as flawed as any of these stats!

 

[Pogue Mahone]

In 5 league games this season De Gea and Courtois have made an identical 1.4 saves per game compared to 1.53 per game for Cech last season.

Well, exactly. Now I'm sure you don't need reminding who has had more opportunities to make a save?

 

[Invictus]

Well, exactly. Now I'm sure you don't need reminding who has had more opportunities to make a save?

In fairness to De Gea, even considering that, there's not a massive difference. David has 0.9 per goal conceded and Courtois has 1.1. So it's a really fine margin, despite Courtois playing behind a more composed defense that doesn't poo its undies at the sight of every counter.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

In fairness to De Gea, even considering that, there's not a massive difference. David has 0.9 per goal conceded and Courtois has 1.1. So it's a really fine margin, despite Courtois playing behind a more composed defense that doesn't poo its undies at the sight of every counter.

That's interesting. Had to check how many goals Chelsea have conceded this season. Had no idea the two totals were so similar. They've only conceded one less goal than we have. Which is a bit mad really. Very un-Mourinho.

Of course, the tiny sample size in terms of games played makes comparing stats from this season a bit pointless.

 

[Bob Loblaw]

Stats didn't show us much here, because the defence affect those statistics. You can't blame De Gea when he save several shots and then conceded a goal because our defence did a horrible mistake. If De Gea saves 20 out of 40 shots, he is much worse than Cech, who saved 3 out of 4. And I don't even know how shots, who didn't need a save, affect those stats. But the main difference is just that Chelsea had a good defence in front of him, where Cech has not much to do and De Gea is/was in consistent trouble. Minutes without a goal are nice, but in most cases it's more a sign for a fantastic defence than a brilliant goalkeeper imo.
Mignolet is another example who is completely missing on those lists, but while he is awful so far this season, he wasn't last year, but like United Pool's defence was horrible, even worse than ours, so again not a surprise that he can't look good in those stats.

Dunno why you're bringing up Mignolet as an example. He had a few good months but was terrible from Christmas onwards. It's no surprise to see him rank poorly in those lists, though I'm surprised by de Gea.

 

[JustAFan]

Have a strong feeling come April or May he will be turning in a transfer request for summer 2015.

 

[JoaquinJoaquin]

Im a big fan of David but maybe there has been a reason the club are holding out on his new deal after all, I agree with the people who say it seems like a lack of interest from him, The fourth goal yesterday I was shocked at how static he was, reminded me of when we played City a few years back (the drubbing) and it was similar in that instead of closing the angles down like Van Der Saar or Schmeichel would of he just stood barely from his line giving the striker acres to choose a target from. I don't know if that he is slightly timid to want to do that but he is going to have learn to exert himself more because his current form is slightly concerning, it appears he is confident in his English language speaking now so that can't even be used as an excuse anymore either. Big few months for Dave coming up, LVG says no player is guaranteed a place and that will apply to De Gea also

 

[Invictus]

That's interesting. Had to check how many goals Chelsea have conceded this season. Had no idea the two totals were so similar. They've only conceded one less goal than we have. Which is a bit mad really. Very un-Mourinho.

Of course, the tiny sample size in terms of games played makes comparing stats from this season a bit pointless.

Agreed.

 

[saivet]

Not hugely at fault for the 4th as Rojo, Blackett and Smalling take the bulk of the blame, but he should make it more difficult for Vardy. I think I probably would've scored that if it was me through on goal.

The other goals I have no issues but just too easy for the 4th.

I didn't think de Gea performed well against MK Dons either. He's not made any blunders which is good but I'm still confident he will pick up his form.

 

[Maplered]

I am of the impression recently that he does not let in bad goals, but his inability to stop anything that is a good shot on goal, great goalkeepers all have this ability

 

[Lennon7]

Have a strong feeling come April or May he will be turning in a transfer request for summer 2015.

Seems very happy though? You can tell that just by looking at some of his tweets.

 

[dannyrhinos89]

Seems very happy though? You can tell that just by looking at some of his tweets.

Probably won't be leaving but who knows really?

Maybe he wants to go back to athletic seen as though they are on the up now with great players and great young manager.

Real Madrid need a new keeper too Casillas isn't getting any younger and navas is really a rotation keeper not a number 1. Don't think he'll go being an athletic boy but who knows?. Surely for any spanish youth player barca and real are the "dream".

 

[Pyroblazer]

Dunno why you're bringing up Mignolet as an example. He had a few good months but was terrible from Christmas onwards. It's no surprise to see him rank poorly in those lists, though I'm surprised by de Gea.

Just another example for a keeper who could do what he want and still wouldn't look good in those lists because of the defence in front of him. And I don't think he was overall that terrible, he wasn't good at the end of the season and he is terrible this season so far. But he had a good first half at Pool imo and wasn't really a problem overall last year. This season he is and will be soon replaced if he continues like that.

 

[DanNistelrooy]

He must be low on confidence, any keeper conceding 5 would be. Confident he will turn it around once what is ahead of him improves