It didn’t matter in the end but when Rashford did that crazy backpass yesterday I waited for De Ge to collect it… and waited… and waited.. and he never came. Salah was anout 10 yards from goal by the time he collected the ball, De Gea was just glued to his line. As I say, unimportant in the end, but it was kind of weird to see.
1
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
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- Clean sheets
- 10
- Goals
- 0
- Assists
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It didn’t matter in the end but when Rashford did that crazy backpass yesterday I waited for De Ge to collect it… and waited… and waited.. and he never came. Salah was anout 10 yards from goal by the time he collected the ball, De Gea was just glued to his line. As I say, unimportant in the end, but it was kind of weird to see.
Yeah that's a great example. De Gea's style is bizarre because it renders him unsuitable for basically any tactical set-up you can think of. You can't play a high-line because he won't sweep up and the defenders are left covering way too much ground, if you defend deep to play on the counter you take a risk because he's easily bullied in the box, poor in the air, rarely catches the ball and can't play it out quickly and accurately when he does.
There were far worse individual performances on Sunday, but the burden De Gea's style of keeping places on a back-4 is one of the key reasons we've been unable to make a system work in recent years.
Not that weird to me anymore because I see it every single time De Gea plays.
What would be a poor/over-hit through ball against most teams turns into an excellent through ball against us because the keeper has zero ability to read the danger and come out and clear it, instead choosing to stay rooted to the line like a statue.
It's the exact same with crosses, normally when a player is putting a cross in they have to try not to put it too close to the goal-keeper because they can easily intercept it, however, against us you may as well just whip it in across the 6 yard box or even closer if you like, because De Gea isn't coming out for it no matter what.
How anyone can watch one of our matches and not notice how much of a major problem this is for us is genuinely bewildering to me.
We were last year when Henderson played and Romero before that.
I'm not trying to say either of them where/are the answer because they never got the chance to prove it, but just by being even slightly more proactive and commanding it's an immediate upgrade on De Gea and the results/stats back this up.
Unfortunately we're now back in the era where people are failing to notice how much of a liability De Gea is and are instead blinded by the fact that they watched him pull off one or two decent saves on the YouTube highlights reel and thinks he's our saviour.
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I was shouting at my phone for him to collect that, but he just stood there.
I agree with the criticism on this page, but it's likely to be met with "he's been our best player this season" because of the saves he has been pulling off. At times I feels like he only considers the goal line his area of the pitch.
He's been great this season but truth be told he's weirdly glued to his line. Wasn't there a period of time last season when he started to come forward? Think it was mainly because of Henderson being praised for being the more active one.
I found Bastian schweinsteigers story about him enlightening
He's clearly never seen Manuel Neuer play if he actually thinks he's on his level.
I thought he was very poor against Pool. That last goal by Salah just doesn't happen with any other keeper in this league.
sorry for asking, but what story?
He asked BS if he was better than Neuer, and when told no he didn’t take it well
He's a good shot stopper and that's that. If he is in good form, it can make him look unbeatable because nothing gets past him, but if he is in bad form he looks dead awful because the other parts of his game are lacking so bad it doesn't make up for bad shot stopping.
He's in good form now but we still concede goals like there's no tomorrow. While it isn't totally his fault, he is part of the defence that just doesn't seem to talk to each other very much. Every man for himself.
He's in good form now but we still concede goals like there's no tomorrow. While it isn't totally his fault, he is part of the defence that just doesn't seem to talk to each other very much. Every man for himself.
Nah, he’s not been great at all. How could you think that?
He’s certainly made some very good saves but, as you say, he’s been glued to his line allowing crosses into the area close to the goal and preventing you from playing an effective high line.
Added to that he still can’t kick or accurately throw a ball, his distribution from hand or foot is embarrassingly bad and he finds touch or an opposition player as often as his finds one of his own if he tries to put any reasonable distance on it.
I suppose we can all agree that he’s one of the best reaction save stoppers in the PL but that’s only one part of a modern keepers game and he’s fundamentally useless at anything else.
He’s a goal keeping equivalent of the old and static version of Ronaldo that you have currently occupying your No.9 position.
Ronaldo’s still a terrific scorer of goals, one of the best scorers of goals in the PL for sure, but he won’t press, won’t run, won’t track back.
He quite literally stands there waiting for someone to put the ball immediately in front of him.
I’ll paraphrase myself by saying that I suppose we can all agree that he’s one of the best shot takers in the PL but that’s only one part of a modern strikers game and Ronaldo is fundamentally useless at anything else.
You have maybe the best paid No.1 and the best paid No.9 in the world but their total lack of all round game skills is crippling an otherwise very good squad that ought to be in contention for the biggest prizes.
I’ve already mentioned in this thread that De Gea was in goal for our 3 x heaviest defeats at Old Trafford in the Premier League.
The stats from those matches are damning...
Man Utd 1-6 Man City
(Man City shots on target = 7)
Man Utd 1-6 Spurs
(Spurs shots on target = 8)
Man Utd 0-5 Liverpool
(Liverpool shots on target = 8)
23 shots on target at De Gea... 17 goals conceded
He conceded 73.91% of the shots he faced on target.
That translates to almost 3 out of every 4 shots on target going in.
He is paid £375,000 per week to be the goalkeeper of Manchester United.
It is a disgrace.
Would Ederson have conceded that many goals from the shots on target?
Would Alisson have conceded that many goals from the shots on target?
Would Mendy have conceded that many goals from the shots on target?
No. No. No again.
De Gea inspires zero confidence in our defence.
The biggest problem with De Gea is that he is NOT a proactive goalkeeper, and for the majority of the time he is rooted to his line. That on its own unsettles our defence.
Is it any wonder that Maguire and Shaw play much better when it comes to England, where they play in front of a proactive goalkeeper in Jordan Pickford?
Jordan gets slated from a lot of fans for his wild style of play (which he has spoken about and is in the process of addressing it), but I would much prefer him to be our goalkeeper than David De Gea every day of the week.
A lot of our fan base will not admit it. Even though it is clear to see:
De Gea is static (rarely comes off his line to collect crosses), isn’t vocal (doesn’t organise our defence), is poor with his distribution (which constantly invites pressure on us), is mentally weak (his head constantly drops) and he is holding us back as a team that is wanting to progress.
There are a lot of aspects to being a goalkeeper.
De Gea has more weaknesses than strengths.
There are major problems with the current state of our team.
David De Gea is one of those major problems.
The stats from those matches are damning...
Man Utd 1-6 Man City
(Man City shots on target = 7)
Man Utd 1-6 Spurs
(Spurs shots on target = 8)
Man Utd 0-5 Liverpool
(Liverpool shots on target = 8)
23 shots on target at De Gea... 17 goals conceded
He conceded 73.91% of the shots he faced on target.
That translates to almost 3 out of every 4 shots on target going in.
He is paid £375,000 per week to be the goalkeeper of Manchester United.
It is a disgrace.
Would Ederson have conceded that many goals from the shots on target?
Would Alisson have conceded that many goals from the shots on target?
Would Mendy have conceded that many goals from the shots on target?
No. No. No again.
De Gea inspires zero confidence in our defence.
The biggest problem with De Gea is that he is NOT a proactive goalkeeper, and for the majority of the time he is rooted to his line. That on its own unsettles our defence.
Is it any wonder that Maguire and Shaw play much better when it comes to England, where they play in front of a proactive goalkeeper in Jordan Pickford?
Jordan gets slated from a lot of fans for his wild style of play (which he has spoken about and is in the process of addressing it), but I would much prefer him to be our goalkeeper than David De Gea every day of the week.
A lot of our fan base will not admit it. Even though it is clear to see:
De Gea is static (rarely comes off his line to collect crosses), isn’t vocal (doesn’t organise our defence), is poor with his distribution (which constantly invites pressure on us), is mentally weak (his head constantly drops) and he is holding us back as a team that is wanting to progress.
There are a lot of aspects to being a goalkeeper.
De Gea has more weaknesses than strengths.
There are major problems with the current state of our team.
David De Gea is one of those major problems.
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Against Liverpool there was nothing he could do with 3 of those goals since the defense left the players next to him get open.
I know he outclassed our midfield the other day, but steady on mate!
Seriously though, I do agree with your view. Although I think Maguire and Shaw were more than fine last season, even with De Gea behind them.
I know he outclassed our midfield the other day, but steady on mate!
Seriously though, I do agree with your view. Although I think Maguire and Shaw were more than fine last season, even with De Gea behind them.
Fixed.
I would put that down to the mere fact that De Gea being in goal unsettles our defence, which reverberates throughout the team.
Also, if there was nothing he could do about 3 of the goals on Sunday, what about the other 2?
The stats really are damning.
Really? Where can I read up on this? Sounds funny.
You picked 3 absolute batterings, of course his save percentage is going to be poor. I could easily give you 3 times Ederson, Alisson and Mendy played in teams that got battered and give you their save percentages. For example, when Liverpool lost 1-4 at home to City last season, Alisson had a 20% save percentage and 2 mistakes leading to goals. Which one of those 17 goals were genuinely De Gea’s fault? He could not have done anything to prevent those batterings. Bring those results to threads about Jonny Evans and Maguire if you want to portion individual blame.
In 2017-18, De Gea had an 82% save percentage, the most clean sheets in the league and dragged us to 2nd. This year, he has been our best player despite playing in front of a shoddy defence that hasn’t enabled him to keep more than a single clean sheet. Even his distribution has improved massively. Look at Bruno’s goal against Newcastle as proof. For me, he’s saved us 9 points already, 6 in the PL against Southampton, Wolves and West Ham, and 3 in the CL against Villarreal. Ole would be long gone without De Gea this season. Admittedly, he wasn’t great last season and the season before last, but in the 8 seasons before, he’s saved us from permanently dropping out of the top 4.
Also, in the years of mediocrity since Fergie left, only once did he flirt with the thought of leaving, and at that back to his home city, which people always use against him. On the other hand, I consider him one of the most loyal and true United men we have. You should mention all this rather than only crucify him for 3 hammerings that he wasn't even at fault for.
As for Jordan Pickford, that is absolutely wrong for me. Yes, De Gea is far from amazing at coming off his line and dealing with corners, but that hasn’t cost us once this season. For example, there’s no chance he should have come out when Demiral and Hause scored their set piece goals. Coincidentally, the two people you’re defending, Maguire and Shaw, we’re at fault for the first goal, while Cavani lost Hause for the second. Pickford himself is not great at dealing with corners too. See the Watford game where he conceded 2 from corners. Him being kamikaze in his goalkeeping doesn’t actually make him good. Maguire and Shaw are better for England because they psych themselves up more for England and concentrate more. Are you telling me their regular brain farts here should be attributed to De Gea?
In short, De Gea has been our pound for pound best player since his arrival, and is not even a problem in our team at the moment, let alone a massive one.
You picked 3 absolute battering
I specifically highlighted the fact that in the 3 x heaviest defeats at our home ground in the Premier League, David De Gea was in goal for all of them.
I could easily give you 3 times Ederson, Alisson and Mendy played in teams that got battered and give you their save percentages.
OK, you have mentioned one for Alisson (4-1 home league defeat to City last season)
Where are the other examples that you can ‘Easily give’ for Alisson, Ederson, and Mendy?
Which one of those 17 goals were genuinely De Gea’s fault?
Cold hard facts are staring you right in the face, yet you are trying to deflect away from De Gea (which ironically is what I wish De Gea had done more of with the shots he faced on target )
He could not have done anything to prevent those batterings.
Really?
His most important job is to stop the ball going into his goal.
23 shots on target. 17 goals conceded.
Yet you absolve him of any blame.
In 2017-18, De Gea had an 82% save percentage, the most clean sheets in the league and dragged us to 2nd.
More than 3 x seasons ago.
This year, he has been our best player despite playing in front of a shoddy defence that hasn’t enabled him to keep more than a single clean sheet. Even his distribution has improved massively.
When mentioning how underwhelming the aspects of his overall goalkeeping are, including his distribution, I did state, ‘A lot of our fan base will not admit it. Even though it is clear to see (how underwhelming he is)’
If you seriously believe that his distribution has 'Improved massively', then the standards you have for what good distribution is, must be incredibly low.
Admittedly, he wasn’t great last season and the season before last
But that’s OK though, because in your eyes he, ‘Has been our best player this season’
In the 8 seasons before, he’s saved us from permanently dropping out of the top 4.
So what you are saying is when we secure Top 4, it is a direct result of David De Gea?
Yet when he concedes 17 goals from 23 shots faced on target, in our 3 x heaviest defeats in the Premier League at Old Trafford, it is nothing to do with David De Gea?
Call it one of ‘Rose tinted glasses’, ‘Ignorance’, ‘Blind faith’, and even ‘Delusional’.
In fact call it all of them if you choose.
I consider him one of the most loyal and true United men we have. You should mention all this rather than only crucify him for 3 hammerings that he wasn't even at fault for.
I looked at our 3 x biggest defeats at Old Trafford in the Premier League.
I then looked at who was in goal for those 3 x biggest defeats.
From the 23 combined shots on target in those matches, 17 goals were conceded.
No amount of ‘Loyalty’ or being 'A true United man' can justify conceding 17 goals from 23 shots faced on target.
(De Gea) is not even a problem in our team at the moment, let alone a massive one.
Again, ‘Rose tinted glasses’, ‘Ignorance’, ‘Blind faith’, and even ‘Delusional’ come to mind.
By the way, please note that in my response to you, you would have seen that I have used the word ‘Delusional’
I have NOT used the word ‘Deluded’ because I am only referring to the text you have written, I am NOT referring to you.
I've criticised De Gea plenty in this thread, but there's a reason why you don't judge goalkeeping performance from save percentage across small samples. A shot can either be easily saveable or virtually unstoppable, regardless of the difficulty of the original chance. Obviously the data doesn't exist for the 1-6 against City, but we do have post-show xG for the last two seasons. The post-shot xG, so the xG based on the actual quality of the actual shots, were 4.5 and 5.0 for the Spurs and Liverpool games respectively. Conceding 11 goals from 9.5 post-shot xG is nothing to worry about. It's underperformance, but the stat is highly volatile, and De Gea has overperformed for the vast majority of his career.
I agree that data can be looked at in different ways.
The fact remains that in our 3 x heaviest defeats at Old Trafford in the Premier League, David De Gea was between the sticks and conceded goals at a rate of almost 75% to the shots he faced on target; getting on for 3 out of every 4 shots on target going in.
What I cannot agree with is the blanket statement of:
‘De Gea has overperformed for the vast majority of his career’
In what aspect exactly?
Shot-stopping?
What about (in no particular order)
- Being in command of his 6-yard box
- Collecting crosses
- Distribution
- Organising the defence
- Inspiring confidence
- Saving penalties
- Being brave
I am struggling to see beyond shot-stopping.
We can have a good debate over coming for crosses and distribution, but most of your points revolve around 3 average games for him, and abysmal games for the team and club as a whole.
Thus, I just put myself through the pain of rewatching the highlights of the 1-6 games (I remember Liverpool’s goals), and there were absolutely no howlers. None. Of those goals, only consider two of them ones he shouldn’t have let in (not bad mistakes, but you’d expect him to save them), which is when Silva nutmegged him and when Maguire tackled Shaw and Ndombele scored. Great, he saves them and we lose 1-5 twice instead. The ignominy would have been no less than what it was. Can you really show me bad mistakes he made in those games, unless you expected him to give 10/10 performances while everyone else downed tools?
Also, I agree that the good season he’s having shouldn’t excuse the last 2 years where I’ve also been highly critical of him. However, you seem to be in agreement that he’s been our best player this season as you didn’t address that bit specifically. In that case, how can he be a major problem in our team? It just doesn’t make sense, especially when you consider the fact that he’s had to contend with the entire back 4 bar Varane being well out of form for the whole season to date.
Put it this way, goalkeeper will be one of the last positions Ole, or much more likely the new manager addresses at the end of the season.
It is clear that we are not in agreement regarding David De Gea, with the most obvious being:
I see De Gea as a liability
You do not
Whilst I respect your views, I am also not changing mine.
For that reason I would like to draw a line under this debate.
What I want is for our club to improve.
Even if that means changing personnel, and/or our club reminding the players that they give their all on the pitch no matter what
.......I’m sure we are both in agreement about that
With the absolute shit show that is Maguire and Shaw in front of him what do you expect?
My simplest piece of advice to anyone wanting an insight into what I, and many others, have been saying about the problems De Gea's style of play causes us would be to simply watch a full 90 minute match of ours (not just the highlights) and I'd be amazed if you didn't notice numerous incidents where crosses, that would be a simple catch/claim/punch away for most keepers, will cause absolute havoc against us because De Gea is rooted to the line like a statue (the cross could be 3 yards out from his line and he still won't come out for it) or a through pass that would be easily swept up by 99% of keepers ends up in a 1 v1 against us because, again, De Gea fails to read the danger and is rooted to the line.
However, if visual examples aren't enough and you need stats to back this up, then fair enough, check out any of these links:
https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/players/total_keeper_sweeper?po=GOALKEEPER
https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/players/total_high_claim?po=GOALKEEPER
https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/players/punches?po=GOALKEEPER
(These are just for this season (9 games), to get an even better picture you can go back through the seasons)
What is instantly clear is that when it comes to crucial (especially in England) aspects of goalkeeping such as sweeping and coming for crosses (this doesn't even include distribution or low crosses, which he is also evidently poor at) then De Gea is consistently ranked way way down the list (usually in the bottom quarter) on these stats. Often the only goalkeepers lower than him are one's that haven't played as many matches, so if these stats I'm talking about where done in relation to minutes played or percentages then he'd probably be even lower.
I'm sorry but I just cannot fathom how anyone who knows anything about football can't see how much of a major disadvantage this puts us at. What makes matters worse is the fact that De Gea one of the highest paid players in the entire world.
I accept that football is all about opinions but when it comes to this, as I said, I'm baffled how anyone can argue that this isn't a problem. The only way in which anyone could make a convincing argument about De Gea not being a liability to me would be if goalkeeping was all about shot-stopping, but it isn't, that's a fact.
You can't possibly call anyone one of the best players in the world for simply being good at one element of the thing they are required to do, it would be the equivalent of someone claiming that Peter Crouch was the greatest striker ever in the premier league because he was the best at scoring headers.
I'm also well aware that there are other things wrong with the club/manager/players but, for me, it's pointless even looking beyond this major concern because we could sign the best outfield players in the world and we will still concede a lot of possession and goals because they will be playing in front of a guy who is very possibly the least proactive goalkeeper in the professional game.
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Great post. Our defence has been shaky for years, in spite of numerous changes to the personnel, except for one position.
That made my head explode too.
I just saw a clip of Liverpool’s fifth goal and it’s absolutely woeful goalkeeping. Salah’s first touch is outside the box. His second is so heavy that he doesn’t get to the ball again until it’s within a few inches of the 6 yard box. De Gea at this point is still inside his six yard box. No other Liverpool players anywhere near the action. Inexcusable decision to stay rooted to his line like that.
I’m sure there will be a bunch of responses about him being our best player this season (arguably true) but he’s so far below the best keepers in the league it’s a real issue for us. And he’s better paid than any of them! Just one more problem for the next manager to solve. And one more example of why Ole’s rebuild is nowhere near as thorough as we’d like to think.
Good post. Those stats are damning.
Tottenham 0:3 Man Utd
Well deserved clean sheet judging by his performance this season, ironically on his least involved day.
I posted this in the match day thread...
'De Gea's refusal to come off his line will be the undoing of any progress that is made under this manager or the next.
It's crazy that a corner that is floated right into the 6-yard box is allowed to be freely contested with zero intervention from our goalkeeper.
It was sheer luck on half-time that the Tottenham players got in each other's way to stop them scoring from a direct corner swung into the 6-yard box.
We will never go anywhere with De Gea.'
'De Gea's refusal to come off his line will be the undoing of any progress that is made under this manager or the next.
It's crazy that a corner that is floated right into the 6-yard box is allowed to be freely contested with zero intervention from our goalkeeper.
It was sheer luck on half-time that the Tottenham players got in each other's way to stop them scoring from a direct corner swung into the 6-yard box.
We will never go anywhere with De Gea.'
Yeah he deserved this so much. For all the goals we concede this season he has been our best player and never got rewarded for it. Today he wasn’t tested that much but he so deserved this.
We won't go anywhere because all we do is concede corners? How about the number of game-saving he's made over the past decade for us?
A strange player to point the finger at and claim our future is bleak...
Did feck all other than 1 dodgy pass. Defence and spuds attack gave him the night off.
He should have been out on that corner. It's right into the middle of the 6 yard box, if that's not his to claim or punch away I don't know what is.
The defenders don't know whether to go for those or not as that is his area to control. That's what causes a lot of confusion on set pieces and crosses like that in every game.
3 at the back + strikers like Ronaldo and Cavani should help us cover a bit for De Gea's weaknesses on set pieces.
Agreed 100%, he may as well not be there when a cross comes in, it's a massive massive problem, made worse by the fact that our coaches seem completely oblivious to this and never do anything about it.
Since football began, that six yard area has been dominated by goalkeepers, it's common sense, why wouldn't you come for those crosses as a goalkeeper, you can use your hands, so that gives you extra reach over the attackers, also, you have the added insurance of protection from the referee even if it does go wrong.
99% of keepers come for any ball that close into their goal, it's only at Man Utd that De Gea, not only gets away with it, but is actually rewarded by being one of the highest paid players in world football (£375,000) a week.
If you want to know why the club is a laughing stock then look no further than this.
It doesn't matter how good a shot-stopper he is with all these other massive weaknesses in his game, if you weigh up the pros and cons then it cannot possibly be worth persisting with De Gea in my opinion.
Atalanta 2:2 Man Utd
Chucking the ball into the net for the first goal aside, I have no idea why people are happy to stick with a keeper who's scared shitless of coming off his line. It's 4 fecking yards man...
Cost us tonight.
Cost us tonight.
Picked a hell of a time to have his worst game of the season.
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