Very lucky he has rediscovered his form this season or we would be in real trouble , not much of an exaggeration to say we could be a bottom half team now.
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Very lucky he has rediscovered his form this season or we would be in real trouble , not much of an exaggeration to say we could be a bottom half team now.
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.
The worry about De Gea is that you only need to go back literally one season to see what happens when his shot stopping reverts to the norm. So we’re not talking about far-fetched hypotheticals here.
Of course, but what’s the answer? Spend £70 million to replace someone who’s been the best performing player in the team, when there’s so many other areas that need funding?
I think we’ll have to replace Henderson with a high level keeper if we can. It’s a cliche but his best form has come when Henderson and Valdes have been back up. When it became clear Romero was a definite number two, his concentration slipped - We now know it was more related to concentration than his physical ability.
You don't need to spend £70m though, for example Wolves signed a goalkeeper far more suited to our way of playing in the summer for £7m. Do you think Brighton would want £70m for Sanchez as another example?
Changing the back-up goalkeeper would be ridiculous as you're never going to change the major flaws in DDGs game.
I’m sorry but is that poster still harping on about keepers using their ‘wrong arm’? 
I remember him blaming De Gea for not using his under reaching arm for saving a shot that’s flying into to a top corner. Keepers make a judgment call in regards to their body position — mostly a particular type of shot is saved with an over reaching arm.
See one of the best shot stoppers of all time for reference.
I remember him blaming De Gea for not using his under reaching arm for saving a shot that’s flying into to a top corner. Keepers make a judgment call in regards to their body position — mostly a particular type of shot is saved with an over reaching arm.
See one of the best shot stoppers of all time for reference.
Your points about Maguire are well-made, he is not (usually, he's been abysmal this season, granted) a very very poor defender.
Your points about Pogba are well-made, he is not a very very poor midfielder.
Your points about 37 year-old Ronaldo are well-made, he is not a very very poor attacker.
Call it nitpicking with semantics but there is a world of difference between saying a player has one, two or several flaws and them being very very poor overall. Criticism of De Gea is fine, insisting we can do better than him and that he should be replaced is fine but I don't think you do your argument any good by exaggerating, is all I'm saying.
I get the feeling you've become quite hardened to the pushback you've received when you've criticised De Gea in the past. I understand laying out a detailed, thoughtful post about how De Gea's deficiencies in certain areas make his a questionable number one in the modern game and being countered by many 'yeah but Dave saves tho' posts must be frustrating. I'm not trying to do that but I just think 'very very poor' overstates your argument, and this year even with his shortcomings he's been far from our main problem (though I accept the way he plays has a knock-on effect to other areas).
Fair enough, I'll downgrade from 'very very poor' to 'massivley overrated' then.
Do you think we would have conceded less or scored more goals with Sanchez in net this year? I don’t think the stats suggest that.
We’ve had plenty of decent keepers over the years that are better at claiming crosses than De Gea, but ultimately they didn’t last.
Everyone was clamouring for Henderson to play while he was at Sheffield United, came back to United and was made to look very much like a standard Premier League keeper, despite being more keen to come out and claim crosses and through balls.
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.
Watch one of our matches and you will see plenty of examples of the problems his hesitancy causes, but not every single one leads directly to a goal, he might get away with it or get bailed out by a defender, but even then it's a missed chance of gaining possession of the ball for your team.
It's not just hesitancy with crosses though, it's with balls in behind the defence as well, he's simply not good enough at anticipating the danger and cutting it out, and he's also very very timid anyway when a bit of physicality/intimidation is required (Jay Rodriguez's goal for Burnley the most recent example)
Duvan Zapata's goal for Atalanta against us in the away tie this season being a prime example of the problems with his hesitancy (around 4 mins 10 into this video )
Against 99.99% of professional goalkeepers that's not even a chance for Zapata, never mind a goal.
Side note, in a similar situation last night against Danny Welbeck last night he actually did come out and easily cut out the ball so credit to him for that and maybe it's something that our current coaches are drilling into him (although this begs the question of how none of our previous coaches did so).
Schmeichel starfish save!
I‘d blame Maguire’s positioning for that goal more than DDG. He’s never getting to that before the attacker.
I’m not going to defend his sweeping ability, it’s poor. If there’s a keeper out there that can help us concede less at a suitable price, great. I just don’t think those are the kind of keepers like Sanchez.
Its the most important thing about goalkeeping. And he’s decent enough to the rest where it isn’t significantly harming the team, whereas his saves are definitely keeping our season alive.
Very very poor goalkeeper? Go take a cold shower brother.
This season is a bit particular as De Gea's shot-stopping has been at a career-best level and we as a team have been a shambles for reasons that have nothing to do with our goalkeeper. More than we typically would, we needed a shot-stopper this season and more than he typically would, De Gea has delivered.
But if the question was whether in most seasons we'd be better of with a keeper like Sanchez rather than De Gea, the answer is probably yes. And If the question was whether a team like City or Liverpool would be better off with a keeper like Sanchez rather than De Gea, the answer is absolutely yes. It's not a coincidence that the best sides in the league have ended up with goalkeepers who are far more similar to Sanchez than they are to De Gea.
All of this obviously comes with the proviso that you don't know how someone like Sanchez would handle the step-up to playing for a bigger club, etc. But really the point isn't about him in particular so much as about De Gea and the reason why few if any top sides opt for goalkeepers as one-dimensional as he is over better rounded options.
You’ve gottabekidding me, surely? What an absurd opinion.
I agree that Maguire doesn't cover himself in glory either but the difference is that Maguire got absolutely slated for it by the pundits whereas none of them even mentioned the fact that De Gea could have easily prevented that with a tiny bit of anticipation and a few steps forward.
On the night, Rio Ferdinand did a whole breakdown of the goal and absolutely roasted Maguire, pointing out that Maguire had 18 yards to cover to get to the ball and Zapata had 30 yards to cover but beat him to it.
I just don't get how he could analyse the goal in that much detail and not comment on the fact that De Gea had about 4 yards to cover to get it but backtracked away from it instead.
This goes back to one of my main points, other players get constantly scrutinised for their errors but De Gea seems to get a free pass because people see the highlights and see him pull off a few saves.
If you actually watch a full 90 mins of one of our matches (as I unfortunately do ) then it's hard not to notice the problems his hesitancy causes overall.
Love De Gea, but we should have had a young modern ball playing goalkeeper challenging him since a couple years ago. Hendo doesnt really fit that bill. I think amongst all the other positions that we need, a ball playing young gk to challenge De Gea is needed.
I don't know how many times people need to go over the data with Henderson's run in the team last season but every single performance metric was improved, both defensively and offensively as the team were more comfortable playing high up the pitch, that led to more wins and clean sheets. So while you may think he was made to look like a standard PL keeper, in reality as a team we were much better with him in goal despite his poor game against Liverpool which everyone harks back to as if DDG hasn't had his fair share of nightmares over the past few years. Now, nobody is saying he is the long term answer because simply put, nobody knows and he obviously would need to improve significantly but if we are going to become a team that plays higher up the pitch and dominate games, we certainly are not going to do that with DDG in goal because he can't do it and has actively showed in the past that he is not willing to work on those aspects as his game, for example when the club bizarrely allowed him to bring his own coach in a few years back he reverted to his old Atletico coach which essentially overnight undid any progress that he had been making under Hoek.
You've just quoted the Atalanta goal - goalkeepers ball all day every day btw. And even if it wasn't, it is abysmal, cowardly goalkeeping to just stand on his line rather than going to meet the attacker. In that sense it's not dissimilar to Rodriguez last week, in those situations he effectively shows the striker where to put the ball because he makes himself so small. The direct comparison to instances similar to Rodriguez was the Liverpool 0-5 game where Ronaldo and Bruno both went through in the first half and Allisson was on them like a flash and as such they've barely even been remembered as chances because he did his job simply and gave them nothing to aim at. Best thing about that Atalanta goal was that it horrendous and wasn't even his worst error in that game which says a lot.
Even with that save last night you see the difference between him and a modern goalkeeper. He took a short goalkick which was given back to him, a Brighton striker got to within the same postcode as him so he panicked and just hoofed the ball up the pitch which is where we lost possession, they then knock it around for a period of time prior to playing up the pitch and the goalkeeper is involved 3/4 times in that bit of play moving our attackers around (I'm not saying there weren't instances in that move where we should have won possession because there were), but the basic point is that with a more composed goalkeeper the save most likely doesn't need to be made.
If we floated DDG this summer, who would be interested? Genuinely, in terms of really big clubs, who? Possibly Atletico if Oblak were to move on because they play a deeper line but genuinely, I don't see any other top club wanting him as he is massively detrimental to the overall style of the team in terms of his reluctance to leave his line to either help out his defenders in possession or to come and collect simple balls over the top or crosses into the box. He has no relationship whatsoever with Maguire or Varane on the pitch, you see them look at him and ask where he is all the time, in any given game there are usually two, three, four occasions where him showing for a simple backpass would alleviate pressure and he just doesn't do it & the defenders end up looking like idiots because they've had to put the ball out for a throw in or even lost possession in some instances - Newcastle away being one of the most obvious examples when Maguire was out on the left and looked to play the ball back to DDG with no help and by the time he looked back at the play he was being dispossessed.
In terms of your question regarding do I think we'd concede less with Sanchez or Sa (adding him because I used him as my initial example) in goal? Yes, overall I think we would. DDG has been performing at a career high level in terms of shot-stopping, but despite this has still been badly at fault for a number of goals, particularly through October and November where there were 10-11 goals conceded where you'd expect more from your goalkeeper (two things, I'm not saying that DDG was the only problem on those goals and I'm not saying a different goalkeeper realistically stops all of them either, but certainly most of them IMO) & obviously the two in the last week at Burnley & Southampton which were abysmal. I don't dispute DDG makes stops that they might not at times as well so that is a factor. The most important aspect though that would change, certainly with Sanchez/Sa is that I'm pretty confident that a relationship would build between them and the defence and they are a lot more like what Maguire/Varane are used to playing in front of, and when that trust builds up then the overall defensive unit should improve which is the problem we've seen over DDG's time where he has operated almost as a separate entity to the defence which is not what it's about, it's about playing as a unit.
We seen the worst and best of DDG in the first half last night, a woeful clearance that nearly led to a Brighton goal (he also did the exact same thing only a few days earlier v Southampton) and an excellent save from a close range header.
Strongly disagree with you on that and the stats back me up on this because in the entire time he's been here he's been one of the lowest ranked keepers every season in the premier league for claiming crosses, punches and sweeping.
Also, distribution isn't accounted for on the official site I'm referring to but I think we can all agree his distribution is also well below average.
Check it out for yourself, the data is all there:
https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/players/total_high_claim?po=GOALKEEPER
If you think that's good enough for the highest paid goalkeeper in world football (by a mile) then that's up to you but I don't.
Also, if he was that good then why would Spain have dropped him for Unai Simon?
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No you don't. Reach to your right with your right hand. Then reach to your right with your left hand. No tell me which went further
Yeah, that tells you which arm to go with while you're stood there. Now try while you're flying through the air with your body almost horizontal and having to reach up as well as to the side. It's not always the same hand.
This is spot on.
And let’s not forget that the best modern goalkeepers don’t just contribute to the goals against column. Even ignoring the sweeper keeper and cross collection stuff, having a keeper who is a calm and accurate passer of the ball helps the team retain possession and build attacks. It’s an absolute nightmare for a defender or midfielder if your out ball is passing to a goalkeeper who’s most likely response is to loft the ball straight back to the opposition.
How about we do away with left and right and call them upper and lower, based on where the keeper’s torso is positioned mid-dive? Which shoulder is closer to a ball heading into the top corner?
There's also more to it than just reach:
Instinctively that feels right to me as well in terms of which would generate more force.
Well said, excellent post.
Yep.
But then even if everyone agreed that a more modern keeper would improve us, how high does putting the time/money into buying one and finding a buyer for the highly-paid De Gea rank in terms of our priorities going into any transfer window? It's not like there aren't other improvements to be made in attack/midfield/defence that don't involve selling our likely POTY.
With his contract running out at the end of next season and with an option to extend it for another year, we probably just end up replacing him when his time more naturally comes to an end. Assuming we don't hand him another contract....
Yeah cause with one you’re almost beating the ball away whilst with the other; you’re just sticking the hand out in front of the ball really. It’s not something that I’ve seen questioned often to be honest.
Yep.
But then even if everyone agreed that a more modern keeper would improve us, how high does putting the time/money into buying one and finding a buyer for the highly-paid De Gea rank in terms of our priorities going into any transfer window? It's not like there aren't other improvements to be made in attack/midfield/defence that don't involve selling our likely POTY.
With his contract running out at the end of next season and with an option to extend it for another year, we probably just end up replacing him when his time more naturally comes to an end. Assuming we don't hand him another contract....
Yeah, I’ll admit that replacing DDG is marginal gains compared to some of the other potential upgrades in our squad. So wouldn’t be top of the priorities right now. I do think our next manager will want an upgrade fairly soon though. Even more so if we’re trying to balance the books with player salaries.
Now dive through the air with your torso horizantal to the floor about 4 ft off the ground.
Do this to your left and see whether your left hand or right hand reaches higher.
Then to your right and see whether your right hand or left hand reaches higher.
Or maybe you could go play in goal and only go for shots to your left with your left hand and shots to your right hand. Let us know how it works out for you.
He could save it with his swinging cock, as long as it stopped the ball going in.
Possibly because he's right handed and trust his right hand more than left. Maybe if he has to make that save on his right, he'd use his right hand to save. Just like a player takes a shot with his stronger foot at weird angle.
Possibly because he's right handed and trust his right hand more than left. Maybe if he has to make that save on his right, he'd use his right hand to save. Just like a player takes a shot with his stronger foot at weird angle.
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He absolutely deserved to be dropped for Spain because he was in bad form last year. Would you bet against him getting his spot back?
Also, for the style we, and most teams play, he doesn’t have to be the best passer of the football in the world. Spain don’t play that way. When we start tiki-takaing it then maybe we can revesit this conversation. Plus Simon made a couple of huge blunders in the Euros if memory serves me right.
Listen, as long as he keeps making unreal saves, we shouldn’t even consider replacing him. We have so many other holes in this team, Dave is literally our last concern. If we end up with a perfect squad then jump on him maybe (I still wouldn’t), but right now with him being our best player this thread is an embarrassment.
John Harrison is the most pretentious man on the internet.
Some stupid microanalysis here yeah, as long as he keeps the ball out consistently, and it almost never failed him we shoul dbe happy he's the keeper with such trait.
I'd be only critical of his bravery, which is truly keeping him from becoming the world class keeper and make our team play better overall, still borderline world class in his form which luckily has been the case this season.
I know! Just couldn't resist the Stevie Starfish dig
Well, because the flaws in his game are extremely important when it comes to discussing goalkeepers. He uses statistics to back up practically everything that he posts. You can't argue with stats. It's not an agenda. They're straight facts.
De Gea is massively overperforming in terms of shot stopping. His current rate is unsustainable. When it goes back towards a more normal level, his other weaknesses are going to be even more of a problem. We saw three years of De Gea without the insane shot stopping. It wasn't pretty.
Just saw the Liverpool goals vs Inter. Wondering if he would have saved the first one, either by holding a different position or by having better reach/reflexes. No comment on that possibility from the commentator, it's not been considered a GK error.
Watching other team highlights or older matches often leads me to similar thoughts about routine goals - so much seems saveable. DDG has spoilt us.
Watching other team highlights or older matches often leads me to similar thoughts about routine goals - so much seems saveable. DDG has spoilt us.
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