[Kerry Donaghy]

I thought it worked out that he had saved over 12 this season compared to his expected goals against, highest of any keeper?

We don’t seem to be conceding that many from set pieces, despite being woeful at attacking them.

Coming out and claiming a cross like most keepers do, and preventing a chance in the first place won't count as a save but standing glued to your line and having to save from point blank range will.
That's the simple reason he has made more saves than any other keeper.

 

[cabbs1989]

Coming out and claiming a cross like most keepers do, and preventing a chance in the first place won't count as a save but standing glued to your line and having to save from point blank range will.
That's the simple reason he has made more saves than any other keeper.

Thu guy is obsessed with criticising de gea weird as man, stop talking shite

 

[Dan_F]

Coming out and claiming a cross like most keepers do, and preventing a chance in the first place won't count as a save but standing glued to your line and having to save from point blank range will.
That's the simple reason he has made more saves than any other keeper.

How many goals have we conceded this season where he could have come out and claimed a cross?

I don’t think that’s where 95% of his saves are coming from.

 

[TheGame]

Amazing save, one of the best of the season so far.

 

[Red Shorts]

Coming out and claiming a cross like most keepers do, and preventing a chance in the first place won't count as a save but standing glued to your line and having to save from point blank range will.
That's the simple reason he has made more saves than any other keeper.

You think he's made 40 more saves than the next top 4 team GK, purely because he didn't come out to claim a ball?

 

[Red00012]

Where would we be without our player of the season ?

 

[VanDeBank]

Coming out and claiming a cross like most keepers do, and preventing a chance in the first place won't count as a save but standing glued to your line and having to save from point blank range will.
That's the simple reason he has made more saves than any other keeper.

That's a misrepresentation from the stat and your overall point is not true either because DDG was glued to his line in previous seasons when his stats were crap.

 

[Kerry Donaghy]

How many goals have we conceded this season where he could have come out and claimed a cross?

I don’t think that’s where 95% of his saves are coming from.

I never said 95% of his saves come from those scenarios but it's common knowledge that's he's very very reluctant to come for crosses.
Just watch one of our matches and you will see plenty of occasions where he doesn't come for crosses that 99% of professional goalkeepers would.
If you put a cross in that's too close to the goalkeeper then it's generally considered to be a poor cross but against us you may as well put it in close to De Gea because he's not coming for it even if it's 5 yards from goal.
It's a massive problem and if you watch one of our matches I can't see how you wouldn't notice this.

 

[Alemar]

John Harrison has an agenda against de Gea, for many a year already. It’s frustrating as in general his analytics is great. But he simply never praises de Gea, simply never

 

[Dan_F]

I never said 95% of his saves come from those scenarios but it's common knowledge that's he's very very reluctant to come for crosses.
Just watch one of our matches and you will see plenty of occasions where he doesn't come for crosses that 99% of professional goalkeepers would.
If you put a cross in that's too close to the goalkeeper then it's generally considered to be a poor cross but against us you may as well put it in close to De Gea because he's not coming for it even if it's 5 yards from goal.
It's a massive problem and if you watch one of our matches I can't see how you wouldn't notice this.

Yeah he’s not good at it, I have eyes. But how many goals has he conceded through crosses that he should have claimed?

 

[sullydnl]

John Harrison has an agenda against de Gea, for many a year already. It’s frustrating as in general his analytics is great. But he simply never praises de Gea, simply never

Spoiler

Etc, etc.

 

[SadlerMUFC]

De Gea used to always use his wrong arm when diving at full stretch. This has obviously been coached out of him thankfully. I know some will say you get the extra stretch when you do that, but you don't. If you reach to your right, you will be able to reach further with your right hand than your left. The left doesn't give you extra stretch. It just looks good. De Gea's save today he would have missed with his old technique. I've been very critical of him in the past but it's nice to see that you can teach an old dog new tricks...

 

[Alemar]

Spoiler

Etc, etc.

Those tweets are simply about concrete saves. But when he gives more general analytics, he always mentions flaws in his game and compares him unfavourably with his favourites such as Alisson, Ederson and more recently Ramsdale.

 

[Red00012]

Really encouraging to see him read the danger and come out and intercept before Danny Welbeck got a chance.
It's basic stuff for most professional goalkeepers but something De Gea very rarely does so I was delighted to see it.

I was waiting and waiting for him to appear on the tv to collect the ball . I’ll be honest I didn’t expect him to come that far

 

[sullydnl]

Yeah he’s not good at it, I have eyes. But how many goals has he conceded through crosses that he should have claimed?

Part of the issue is that it's hard to tell on face value, as you don't know which claimed crosses would have ended up with a goal and which wouldn't, so you have to rely on statistical breakdowns.

As per that John Harrison guy's model, De Gea breaks down like this this season:

Shot stopping: +7.7
1v1s: +1.1
PKs: +1.4
Handling: 0
Crosses: -2.9
Throughballs: -1.7.

So still a net positive of +5.6 goals. He's having a very good season by pretty much any standard.

In fact the real issue looking forward is that this is him performing extremely well in some aspects. Not only is he the best goalkeeper in Europe's top five leagues in terms of PSxG/90 this season, he's trouncing his own previous best season in that regard too (+0.38 versus +0.23). In other words, he's performing unsustainably well in that regard. Which is great for this season, but worrying in terms of his ability to continue compensating for his weaknesses like that.

 

[BorisManUtd]

That save from tonight reminded me of this one:

 

[DRJosh]

brilliant shot stopper. just needs to work on timing and quality of ball distribution when we're on the counter or re-grouping.

 

[calodo2003]

De Gea used to always use his wrong arm when diving at full stretch. This has obviously been coached out of him thankfully. I know some will say you get the extra stretch when you do that, but you don't. If you reach to your right, you will be able to reach further with your right hand than your left. The left doesn't give you extra stretch. It just looks good. De Gea's save today he would have missed with his old technique. I've been very critical of him in the past but it's nice to see that you can teach an old dog new tricks...

A lot of it depends on shot type. If it is on a line, the bottom hand is appropriate. Any looping shot, the top hand should be used as you just can’t reach as high with the lower hand. The Mata shot was a good example of needing to use the top hand while this header was the perfect example of needing further stretch with the lower.

 

[sullydnl]

Those tweets are simply about concrete saves. But when he gives more general analytics, he always mentions flaws in his game and compares him unfavourably with his favourites such as Alisson, Ederson and more recently Ramsdale.

Those general analytics are based on numbers and De Gea's numbers are factually atrocious in several areas of goalkeeping, so what do you expect Harrison to do? Any statistical analysis of De Gea is going to highlight those flaws.

For example, using the goalkeepers you mentioned:

This season Allison is 4th best in the league for % of penalty box crosses claimed, Ramsdale is 9th, Ederson is 11th, De Gea is 22nd.

This season Allison is 1st for defensive actions outside the penalty area, Ederson is 7th, Ramsdale is 15th and De Gea is again 22nd.

Bearing in mind there are only 23 goalkeepers in that pool, there's no way of not criticising De Gea for those aspects of the game when he's second worst in the league in a good season.

 

[lost7]

Those general analytics are based on numbers and De Gea's numbers are factually atrocious in several areas of goalkeeping, so what do you expect Harrison to do? Any statistical analysis of De Gea is going to highlight those flaws.

For example, using the goalkeepers you mentioned:

This season Allison is 4th best in the league for % of penalty box crosses claimed, Ramsdale is 9th, Ederson is 11th, De Gea is 22nd.

This season Allison is 1st for defensive actions outside the penalty area, Ederson is 7th, Ramsdale is 15th and De Gea is again 22nd.

Bearing in mind there are only 23 goalkeepers in that pool, there's no way of not criticising De Gea for those aspects of the game when he's second worst in the league in a good season.

These are very interesting stats. And I'm sure his passing/distribution stats would be just as mediocre.

This season he's more than making up for it, though. What kind of stats do you have for shot stopping, saves relative to expected goals, mistakes that directly led to a goal etc? I'm pretty sure he's among the best in all those this season

 

[NewYorkRed]

He’s embarrassing the absolute fools who wanted/still want us to sell him. Keep your fancy xGDRABCD stats to yourselves, I have eyes and when I see him I’m looking at the best GK in the league this year and its not close.

 

[sullydnl]

These are very interesting stats. And I'm sure his passing/distribution stats would be just as mediocre.

This season he's more than making up for it, though. What kind of stats do you have for shot stopping, saves relative to expected goals, mistakes that directly led to a goal etc? I'm pretty sure he's among the best in all those this season

Yep. Best stat for shot-stopping is probably PSxG+/- per 90min and not only is he the best in the PL for it so far this season, he's the best in the PL, Spanish League, German League, French League and Italian league combined.

This season he has more than made up for his weaknesses and been a net positive. We don't really need stats to tell us that either, if you've just watched us play you know he's rightly going to walk away with our POTY awards once again. The difference between his form this season and in the last few is stark.

It's just worth bearing in mind that he really depends on one aspect of his game to hold up his form. If that drops off he offers almost nothing else, so it's just a question of how much it can drop off before the trade-off isn't worthwhile any more. But that's a problem for future seasons.

 

[Kerry Donaghy]

He’s embarrassing the absolute fools who wanted/still want us to sell him. Keep your fancy xGDRABCD stats to yourselves, I have eyes and when I see him I’m looking at the best GK in the league this year and its not close.

Ask yourself this question:

Is goal-keeping just about shot-stopping?

If the answer is yes, then De Gea is a good goalkeeper.

If the answer is no, then De Gea is a pretty average goalkeeper.

It's that simple.

 

[goptun]

He’s embarrassing the absolute fools who wanted/still want us to sell him. Keep your fancy xGDRABCD stats to yourselves, I have eyes and when I see him I’m looking at the best GK in the league this year and its not close.

You're embarrassing yourself. Do people not bother to read the actual debates going on in threads before they wade in and call everyone morons for having a particular opinion?

 

[Longshanks]

Great save in first half. Poor distribution, zero command of area.

Think for the wellbeck chance late on, just before it Brighton put a pretty floaty cross in towards the back post that Shaw had to head out from inside the six yard box with no Brighton player in sight, meat and drink for even lower league goalkeepers not our 'world class' goalkeeper though, I mean why claim the ball and stop the attack when you can let your defenders half clear something and give the opposition a chance to keep the pressure on. Crazy I know.

 

[Litch]

Part of the issue is that it's hard to tell on face value, as you don't know which claimed crosses would have ended up with a goal and which wouldn't, so you have to rely on statistical breakdowns.

As per that John Harrison guy's model, De Gea breaks down like this this season:

Shot stopping: +7.7
1v1s: +1.1
PKs: +1.4
Handling: 0
Crosses: -2.9
Throughballs: -1.7.

So still a net positive of +5.6 goals. He's having a very good season by pretty much any standard.

In fact the real issue looking forward is that this is him performing extremely well in some aspects. Not only is he the best goalkeeper in Europe's top five leagues in terms of PSxG/90 this season, he's trouncing his own previous best season in that regard too (+0.38 versus +0.23). In other words, he's performing unsustainably well in that regard. Which is great for this season, but worrying in terms of his ability to continue compensating for his weaknesses like that.

The save last night was something else but in a weird way he kinds of reminds me of Rom in how stats identified a different picture. Rom goal scoring was up there with the best but his game showed his failings in lots of departments including who he scored the goals against. DDG shot stopping is probably the best in the world but in a Spain side that was dominating the ball, the other attributes to his game became further exposed.
Great season but like you said, doesn’t tell you the full picture….

 

[Pogue Mahone]

De Gea used to always use his wrong arm when diving at full stretch. This has obviously been coached out of him thankfully. I know some will say you get the extra stretch when you do that, but you don't. If you reach to your right, you will be able to reach further with your right hand than your left. The left doesn't give you extra stretch. It just looks good. De Gea's save today he would have missed with his old technique. I've been very critical of him in the past but it's nice to see that you can teach an old dog new tricks...

That depends on the angle of your torso. Assuming it’s close to horizontal, with a ball above you then using the uppermost arm will always give you the most reach.

 

[Oranges038]

De Gea used to always use his wrong arm when diving at full stretch. This has obviously been coached out of him thankfully. I know some will say you get the extra stretch when you do that, but you don't. If you reach to your right, you will be able to reach further with your right hand than your left. The left doesn't give you extra stretch. It just looks good. De Gea's save today he would have missed with his old technique. I've been very critical of him in the past but it's nice to see that you can teach an old dog new tricks...

There is no such thing as using your wrong arm. You go with the one that gives you the best reach or with DDG last night the one that is closest to ball.

There are times when you get more reach by going with your top hand so to speak, but generally it's when you are actually diving full stretch and not just off to the side a bit.

 

[Alfie092]

Best shot stopper there has been in the past decade. Period.

However, I do not like his distribution and feel at unease whenever the ball goes near him for him to build up attacks... it's just non-existent!

 

[Lay]

Brilliant save. But I have my reservations still. I wish he would throw the ball out quicker ride example. It’s annoying when we could launch a counter attack but he feints a long throw then holds his hands up to apologise after.

 

[sullydnl]

The save last night was something else but in a weird way he kinds of reminds me of Rom in how stats identified a different picture. Rom goal scoring was up there with the best but his game showed his failings in lots of departments including who he scored the goals against. DDG shot stopping is probably the best in the world but in a Spain side that was dominating the ball, the other attributes to his game became further exposed.
Great season but like you said, doesn’t tell you the full picture….

Yep.

Really you could compare De Gea to any classic goal-poacher, because he's basically the goalkeeper equivalent of one. He specialises in one specific thing, offering little else in general play, so you have to weigh up whether he's good enough at that one thing to justify his place in the team. And in both cases the best teams are less inclined to accommodate that sort of specialist in their set-up.

Of course goalkeepers generally offer less in general play than strikers so there's less of a trade-off, plus De Gea at least has been doing extremely well in the one thing he specialises in this season. But given the type of player he is it will be a constant debate for as long as he's here.

 

[Tom Van Persie]

Unbelievable save in the 1st half. Deserved a clean sheet.

 

[12OunceEpilogue]

Ask yourself this question:

Is goal-keeping just about shot-stopping?

If the answer is yes, then De Gea is a good goalkeeper.

If the answer is no, then De Gea is a very very poor goalkeeper.

It's that simple.

The answer is no and De Gea is still not a 'very very poor goalkeeper', there is no way that is true. He's had very very poor form in the recent past but the whole package is not poor, let alone very very poor.

The core point you've made in this thread about De Gea's shortcomings is a fair one, but why exaggerate in the way you have?

 

[Litch]

Yep.

Really you could compare De Gea to any classic goal-poacher, because he's basically the goalkeeper equivalent of one. He specialises in one specific thing, offering little else in general play, so you have to weigh up whether he's good enough at that one thing to justify his place in the team. And in both cases the best teams are less inclined to accommodate that sort of specialist in their set-up.

Of course goalkeepers generally offer less in general play than strikers so there's less of a trade-off, plus De Gea at least has been doing extremely well in the one thing he specialises in this season. But given the type of player he is it will be a constant debate for as long as he's here.

Yep, goalkeepers are often measured by how many saves they make but the best are often the things did they do in order to not have to make the save at all. If you command your box, oppositions think differently about crossing the ball and set pieces. If your keeper is good at coming out and reading the game, your defenders worry less about the ball over the top. If your distribution is better, it gives you better ball retention or attacking outlet. Shot stopping not making saves is often down to other factors, clearly not all DDG.
Ironically the best we seen of Harry was often when Henderson played and why it was leaked I believe that the defence preferred him.

 

[Gottabekiddingme]

This club will never win a major trophy with him in goal. Equivalent to the likes of Maguire and Fred in my book. That's not a top goalkeeper for a dominant team

 

[TheReligion]

Save of the season contender last night.

He’s been back to his best for a while.

 

[UnofficialDevil]

That save yesterday was unreal, reminded me of starfish. And has been player of the month twice in row now? For a goalie that must be a first?

 

[V.O.]

That save yesterday was unreal, reminded me of starfish.

I don't remember Gerrard ever having a go in goal?

 

[Kerry Donaghy]

The answer is no and De Gea is still not a 'very very poor goalkeeper', there is no way that is true. He's had very very poor form in the recent past but the whole package is not poor, let alone very very poor.

The core point you've made in this thread about De Gea's shortcomings is a fair one, but why exaggerate in the way you have?

Because, as I've said many many times, it's not that he's average at the other aspects, he's absolutely awful, and in some cases non-existant, at them (and the stats 100% back this up).

Compare De Gea to outfield players:

Maguire is fantastic at winning headers but gets constant criticism because of his other weaknesses and how they affect the team/style of play, rightly so.

Pogba is a fantastic passer of the ball, but gets constant criticism because of his other weaknesses and how they affect the team/style of play, rightly so.

Ronaldo is a superb finisher (not in recent weeks though) but gets constant criticism because of his other weaknesses and how they affect the team/style of play, rightly so.

De Gea is a fantastic shot stopper, but gets constant criticism because of his other weaknesses and how they affect the team/style of play, rightly so.

There's absolutely no difference here apart from the fact that any time anyone attempts to point out De Gea's weaknesses (even though they are blindingly obvious if you know anything at all about football) they get accused of having some sort of agenda against him.

It's nothing personal, I just want the team to be as best as they can be.
I would love nothing more than De Gea to shut me up and start improving on these flaws but he's been here for ten years now and hasn't improved any of his weaknesses, so it's clearly not going to happen, therefore I think we need to replace him asap if we're serious about competing for titles and champions leagues again.

 

[Dan_F]

Part of the issue is that it's hard to tell on face value, as you don't know which claimed crosses would have ended up with a goal and which wouldn't, so you have to rely on statistical breakdowns.

As per that John Harrison guy's model, De Gea breaks down like this this season:

Shot stopping: +7.7
1v1s: +1.1
PKs: +1.4
Handling: 0
Crosses: -2.9
Throughballs: -1.7.

So still a net positive of +5.6 goals. He's having a very good season by pretty much any standard.

In fact the real issue looking forward is that this is him performing extremely well in some aspects. Not only is he the best goalkeeper in Europe's top five leagues in terms of PSxG/90 this season, he's trouncing his own previous best season in that regard too (+0.38 versus +0.23). In other words, he's performing unsustainably well in that regard. Which is great for this season, but worrying in terms of his ability to continue compensating for his weaknesses like that.

That’s interesting. I’m struggling to remember three crosses he could have claimed that led to a goal this season, but I don’t care enough to go back and look, I’ll trust it

I think it’s undeniable that he has always struggled with this, although his kicking seems to have regressed massively. It’s not just inaccuracy, it’s leading to opposition getting the ball in dangerous areas and seems to happen in every game.

Not sure on the argument in this thread that it’s worrying if he can’t keep up these numbers. Do we judge other players in that way? When Ronaldo was scoring 40 goals a season, were any Madrid fans says “but what happens if he stops scoring”.

If you took away Kante’s ability to cover ground, he’d be a really limited midfielder etc etc. I don’t think Chelsea fans are bothered.