He was being pedantic. I think he knew exactly what i meant. But to answer your question, i believe that in modern football the first phases of build-up have become so important that a lot of managers (at least those who want to be more progressive and attacking with their positional play) take this into very serious consideration when they choose their man between the sticks. There were far cheaper choices for Liverpool, yet Klopp picked a very specific man for the job. A lot doesn't mean everyone, of course. Courtois, for example, isn't good with his feet, but nobody was complaining about him last season when Real Madrid did the CL-La Liga double. Keep in mind, though, that Ancelotti (or Zidane before him) is renowned for his pliable tactics and his more defensive mindset. When you see ETH, you think he's closer to him as a manager or to Klopp/Pep?
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Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 58
- Clean sheets
- 25
- Goals
- 0
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 2
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) look forward to a new life under Ruben Amorim. What system will we be playing? What players will impress? and how will it all go? We also say goodbye to Ruud Van Nistelrooy and review United's 3-0 win at home against Leicester City.
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He was being pedantic. I think he knew exactly what i meant. But to answer your question, i believe that in modern football the first phases of build-up have become so important that a lot of managers (at least those who want to be more progressive and attacking with their positional play) take this into very serious consideration when they choose their man between the sticks. There were far cheaper choices for Liverpool, yet Klopp picked a very specific man for the job. A lot doesn't mean everyone, of course. Courtois, for example, isn't good with his feet, but nobody was complaining about him last season when Real Madrid did the CL-La Liga double. Keep in mind, though, that Ancelotti (or Zidane before him) is renowned for his pliable tactics and his more defensive mindset. When you see ETH, you think he's closer to him as a manager or to Klopp/Pep?
I could see a scenario if which De Gea starts the first game of next season, but won’t be first choice by October time. I can’t see how ETH doesn’t act and bring someone of real quality in, even if younger and of a lower profile, slowly integrating them.
It’s an absolute farce that we have had four senior keepers in the squad this season (DDG, Dubravka, Heaton and Butland) and he’s the best we have got. I think if ETH had his time again, he’d have gone for a bonafide keeper in the summer. I doubt he looks at the situation and thinks that he is glad he backed De Gea.
Stats are never the best measure of performance given football isn't played on a spreadsheet.
De Gea is having a better season than he has had in a while this year, which is evident to anyone watching. He's been asked to evolve his game which has involved some teething problems, which can be said about the entire squad.
Against his peers, on what would be considered fairly important requirements for a goalkeeper he ranks competitively high, at 3rd for clean sheets and 4th for saves. Given the teams ability to collapse however, he has also conceded more goals than in recent seasons, but this can be explained quite easily due to the development from a timid, cowardly team to a more attack minded one.
If Erik can identify a good replacement, I'm all for it. I love De Gea especially for his pre WC'18 run, but in Erik I trust.*
* because as I've said a few times in this thread, I don't know if I trust our scouts who IDed AWB to do this right.
[sic]
Big money indeed when you're putting it up against the forum that proclaimed Dean Henderson was the solution
That would still make him overpaid by quite a lot.
What stat is that?
No idea, he’s 11th for number of saves and 16th for save percentage in the PL this year. If you normalise for shot difficulty using post shot xG he’s 28th, just below Dean Henderson.
He is joint third for clean sheets with Alisson though and we know how good Liverpools defence has been this season.
Real Madrid do alright
The first bolded part is untrue, he's definitely NOT having a better season than a year before. He's been asked to evolve his game what is not working very well as he can't get the basics right way too often.
About the red part, well I think the conclusion is we have a great shot stopper at our hands
Big money indeed when you're putting it up against the forum that proclaimed Dean Henderson was the solution
I suspect ETH was well aware in the summer that there were much bigger issues with the team than the goalkeeper. Unless we get taken over by someone immediately willing to spunk huge money I reckon DDG keeps the gloves for all of next season. We've got much bigger issues to fix.
Who's his target?
Yikes. And this is in a season where the eye test tells us his shot stopping has improved from recent seasons. 28th place in a 19 team league is really quite something. And that’s the part of his game that’s supposed to be his strength!
I’m all for replacing De Gea after this season. He’s been a United legend but we need to evolve.
Seen enough of him really and quite honestly he also reminds me of the bad times a bit. Not his fault granted but the club should be looking totally towards the future now.
Fresh blood to better fit the system.
Seen enough of him really and quite honestly he also reminds me of the bad times a bit. Not his fault granted but the club should be looking totally towards the future now.
Fresh blood to better fit the system.
He’s still good at the “one for the cameras” saves. It’s just how many other ones get past him.
As De Gea is not contracted for next season, I cannot see it. Keeping him isn’t free. You could find another free agent to improve upon him at far less cost. He’ll take a pay cut, but I doubt he’s willing to knock more than a zero off his salary. There’s no value in retaining him. You don’t want a second choice keeper who would completely hamstring the rest of the team when he steps in.
Did you say Ederson gets far more touches then De Gea? So that increases his chances of being involved in a goal.
City are also much more prolific than us so again that helps his cause without him necessarily having anything to do with the goal.
I don't see how this data strengthens the case for a ball playing goalkeeper. Just that Ederson sees more of the ball and City score more goals. I think De Bruyne and Haaland have 100 times more to do with their goals than Ederson.
Yes sorry, I was looking at the golden glove rankings which only took the top 10 into account, and they were a week behind the date so it may have changed in terms of saves after the Liverpool game.
Care to wager five whole pounds on that?!
Raya or Costa I reckon
What’s the bet?
I'll take that bet any day!
Get's a lot of stick but has also bailed us out and preserved/gained us points on more than a few occasions. Expect him to stay another few years.
He has made 2 or 3 genuinely top class saves this season. The one against Palace was outrageous. But the stats show that this is balanced out by letting too many shots past him that most other keepers would save. And there’s been a bunch of saves hyped up on here/by commentators that basically any top flight goalkeeper would be expected to stop.
I'm arguing that playing out from the back isn't critical to modern football. Real Madrid do fine without a ball playing GK.
Lots of people are arguing that it is. Have you not read the past 100 pages?
Deal! So the bet is that DDG is our first choice keeper for the majority of next season? Just caveating 'the majority' in case he's injured and someone has to deputise...
To make it even safer for you, De Gea plays over 50% of minutes next season when fit. Deal?
Another reason not to take these stats too seriously
28th
I should have caveated that with the fact that isn’t normalised for number of shots faced, so I kind of walked into that. However if you do so he ranks 13th out of 19 for keepers that have played at least 15 games worth of minutes (the last column - post-shot xG faced minus goals conceded, divided by post-shot xG faced). Not that it matters, you'll just ignore it anyway.
| Player | 90s | Goals against | Direct free kicks against | Goals conceded from non-shot free kicks | Goals conceded from corners | Own goals conceded | Post-shot xG faced | Crosses faced | Crosses Stopped | % of crosses stopped | Sweeping actions | Sweeping actions /90 | Saves vs Expected |
| Alisson | 25 | 28 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 36.6 | 276 | 14 | 5.1 | 47 | 1.88 | 23% |
| Kepa Arrizabalaga | 16.5 | 13 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 16.8 | 223 | 9 | 4 | 32 | 1.94 | 23% |
| Bernd Leno | 24 | 32 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 36.8 | 316 | 23 | 7.3 | 32 | 1.33 | 13% |
| Nick Pope | 23.2 | 17 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 18.3 | 296 | 21 | 7.1 | 52 | 2.24 | 7% |
| Jordan Pickford | 25 | 38 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 40.1 | 368 | 13 | 3.5 | 30 | 1.2 | 5% |
| David Raya | 24 | 32 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 2 | 32.4 | 390 | 38 | 9.7 | 36 | 1.5 | 1% |
| Łukasz Fabiański | 22.6 | 27 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 27.2 | 323 | 21 | 6.5 | 12 | 0.53 | 1% |
| Aaron Ramsdale | 26 | 25 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 24.5 | 264 | 16 | 6.1 | 32 | 1.23 | -2% |
| Vicente Guaita | 25 | 32 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 29.9 | 393 | 25 | 6.4 | 26 | 1.04 | -7% |
| José Sá | 26 | 35 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 32.7 | 400 | 31 | 7.8 | 23 | 0.88 | -7% |
| Hugo Lloris | 21 | 29 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 25.7 | 274 | 16 | 5.8 | 26 | 1.24 | -13% |
| Dean Henderson | 18 | 31 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 26.9 | 291 | 20 | 6.9 | 27 | 1.5 | -15% |
| David de Gea | 25 | 35 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 29.7 | 362 | 9 | 2.5 | 20 | 0.8 | -18% |
| Illan Meslier | 25 | 40 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 33.3 | 316 | 27 | 8.5 | 49 | 1.96 | -20% |
| Robert Sánchez | 22 | 29 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 24.1 | 220 | 17 | 7.7 | 13 | 0.59 | -20% |
| Emiliano Martínez | 22.4 | 31 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 25.5 | 294 | 39 | 13.3 | 27 | 1.21 | -22% |
| Danny Ward | 25 | 43 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 35.1 | 345 | 21 | 6.1 | 38 | 1.52 | -23% |
| Ederson | 26 | 25 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 19.9 | 212 | 19 | 9 | 29 | 1.12 | -26% |
| Gavin Bazunu | 25 | 41 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 25.9 | 359 | 30 | 8.4 | 36 | 1.44 | -58% |
Absolutely.
Oh I'll ignore it alright. These stats on goalies are ridiculous and I've said why many times already.
It's the norm, though. When someone argues a point, you can't just point at the obvious outlier to say "here's your proof" and then go on to dismiss their argument. I even mentioned Courtois myself to another poster. Anyway, we'll see what happens. I've nothing against De Gea (or any other player). It just seems to me that ETH's system will benefit from a keeper who has this in his game.
Sure you can
Given that I don't read every single post of every thread, why don't you educate me?
On Courtois, Madrid have won the league twice in the last five years (and lost it to some pretty average Barca and Atleti sides three times) with an average of slightly more than 80 points and a peak of 87. Their peak season would have been enough to win the PL in the COVID season and that's it. The winner of the PL has averaged 95 points over the same time and the lowest season (by some margin was 86). You cannot get 90+ points consistently without being in control of the ball the overwhelming majority of the time, that means having a ball playing keeper. Look at all the sides across Europe who consistently gain 90+ points per season over the same time period: Bayern, Ajax (under Ten Hag), City and Liverpool. All of them dominate the ball to a ridiculous degree and all have excellent ball-playing keepers to facilitate this. Madrid are the only successful exception you can name, yet they're a pretty average league side who do very well in cups.
I know. It's not me you need to convince, just look at my posts in the last couple of pages.
Apologies, I misread your post and have since edited mine.
Great! I've bookmarked the post, when shall we revisit? This time in 2024?
I'll see you here!
Haven't said much at all in this thread because I think it's pretty inevitable that we re-sign him on a reduced salary. Ten Hag has also referred to him on a few occasions as one of the 'leaders' in the team, maybe off the field with the seniority he has in appearances etc. Certainly not his meek presence on it.
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