David de Gea has left Manchester United

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Its also illustrative that not a single top club has shown any interest.

We don't know that. Conversations can be had privately. He's sitting on a massive pile of money and just got married, so he's probably taking a bit of family time off since he wouldn't be afforded a break like this if he was signed.
 
Presumably he is simply waiting for a better offer than the ones he's had.

And really why wouldn't he? Not like he can't afford to wait a while and see if an opportunity comes up. And in the meantime get the sort of extended break with his family he won't have had in over a decade.

If I was him I'd probably happily take the extended break, see if I can fluke my way into a better club than I really deserve and if not settle for something else later.

That's not really how football works though is it.

If a top club wanted him, they'd have signed him by now.

It's pretty simple really, if he want's big money he needs to go to Saudi Arabia. If he want's to stay in Europe he needs to settle for considerably low wages and a Europa League level team at best.
 
That's not really how football works though is it.

If a top club wanted him, they'd have signed him by now.

It's pretty simple really, if he want's big money he needs to go to Saudi Arabia. If he want's to stay in Europe he needs to settle for considerably low wages and a Europa League level team at best.
Yeah, and it's not as if his value is going to go up the longer he stays away from the game.
 
That's not really how football works though is it.

If a top club wanted him, they'd have signed him by now.

It's pretty simple really, if he want's big money he needs to go to Saudi Arabia. If he want's to stay in Europe he needs to settle for considerably low wages and a Europa League level team at best.

That's exactly what I mean though. Right now, top clubs rightly don't want him.

However things can change. A player gets injured, a player moves on transfer, suddenly a top club (or at least a better club than the ones he's currently being offered) might get desperate and turn to him.

Even if he has to wait until January and see if an opportunity comes up then, what harm? He's rich enough that he's under no pressure to work and I'm sure he'll enjoy his few months off. And if nothing comes up, he can lower his expectations/demands at that point.
 
When you're on £375k per-week for years, the urgency to play immediately probably won't be as strong, particularly when most clubs would offer a 70% pay cut. Financially, he's beyond set for life and can take a year off in the Balaerics before reassessing his next move.

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever done this? Not being close to retirement, then semi-retire only to make a comeback and play for another year or two. Take a break as an active footballer, i mean. At 32, De Gea is at the tail-end of his peak years as a goalkeeper. Is that the time to take a sabbatical? He should be craving to play football. The notion that the top-level clubs that shun him now will take a gamble on him after a whole year without any kind of competitive football seems more like the United faithful wearing their rose-tinted glasses on (can't blame that for happening to a degree) and less like a sound career decision.
 
That's exactly what I mean though. Right now, top clubs rightly don't want him.

However things can change. A player gets injured, a player moves on transfer, suddenly a top club (or at least a better club than the ones he's currently being offered) might get desperate and turn to him.

Even if he has to wait until January and see if an opportunity comes up then, what harm? He's rich enough that he's under no pressure to work and I'm sure he'll enjoy his few months off. And if nothing comes up, he can try Saudi Arabia or just lower his expectations at that point.

Dave came off a full season of football and was in prime shape going into the summer to get a club. However, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid both had crocked keepers in the summer and neither wanted him on a free. Chelsea lost Kepa towards the end of the window and decided to keep with Sanchez, Brightons reserve keeper from past year.

I doubt this is going to change with him spending months in the footballing wilderness. If anything it's going to get worse. I think the brutal conclusion will be that most of the footballing world doesn't rate him and if he's holding out for a top club after months as a free agent he'll be in for a rude awakening.
 
Dave came off a full season of football and was in prime shape going into the summer to get a club. However, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid both had crocked keepers in the summer and neither wanted him on a free. Chelsea lost Kepa towards the end of the window and decided to keep with Sanchez, Brightons reserve keeper from past year.

I doubt this is going to change with him spending months in the footballing wilderness. If anything it's going to get worse. I think the brutal conclusion will be that most of the footballing world doesn't rate him and if he's holding out for a top club after months as a free agent he'll be in for a rude awakening.
Better yet - pay £30m for Brighton's reserve keeper from last year - third choice at the time of signing him actually. And then another £12m or so on an MLS goalkeeper.
 
Out of curiosity, has anyone ever done this? Not being close to retirement, then semi-retire only to make a comeback and play for another year or two. Take a break as an active footballer, i mean. At 32, De Gea is at the tail-end of his peak years as a goalkeeper. Is that the time to take a sabbatical? He should be craving to play football. The notion that the top-level clubs that shun him now will take a gamble on him after a whole year without any kind of competitive football seems more like the United faithful wearing their rose-tinted glasses on (can't blame that for happening to a degree) and less like a sound career decision.

Exactly. Even if he retired at 40 that’s a lot of years after to ‘retire’. I sense he has high salary expectations which no club will accommodate. Eventually he will have to drop those demands to get a club.
 
That's exactly what I mean though. Right now, top clubs rightly don't want him.

That's like me saying, right now Margot Robbie isn't interested, but you never know she might break up with her husband so I'll hold out in case she does.

De Gea is delusional if he thinks he's getting a move to a big European club.
 
That's on the midfield. Onana has been the only bright spot so far. We're like a sinking ship, we plug one hole and another appears.

De Gea was seriously holding us back this last couple of years and it will take a little time for our defence to get used to a new style.
How the hell is he (only) bright spot? Based on what?
 
We don't know that. Conversations can be had privately. He's sitting on a massive pile of money and just got married, so he's probably taking a bit of family time off since he wouldn't be afforded a break like this if he was signed.

You cant be serious.
 
There was a lot of transfer activity for keepers this summer in top leagues, much more than usual. Like half the PL changed their keepers. Bayern, Inter and Madrid signed new keepers, and even Sevilla lost their starting keeper.

I won't say I'm completely surprised he hasn't gotten a move but I expected some team to have signed him by now.
 
That's like me saying, right now Margot Robbie isn't interested, but you never know she might break up with her husband so I'll hold out in case she does.

De Gea is delusional if he thinks he's getting a move to a big European club.

Again, it doesn't have to be a top European club. Just a better offer than the ones he's received so far.

The base point is that there's no harm in him waiting if he thinks that better offer might come along, because his stock isn't going to dramtically drop further between now and January.

Also, you support a top European side that within the last 12 months has brought in both Wout Weghorst and Sergio Reguilon, players who failed at Burnley and Spurs respectively, and wanted to bring in Marko Arnautovic. And it's not just us. Stoke/Newcastle failure Joselu currently plays for Real Madrid, Barca have previously signed the likes Spurs failure Paulinho and the awful Marcos Alonso, and Christ only knows how many piss poor player have found their way to top Italian sides over the years. Far weirder things have happened than the likes of De Gea fluking his way to a relatively sizeable club due to circumstances. Players fail upwards a lot in football even when they're still contracted to clubs, let alone when they're unattached.
 
Exactly. Even if he retired at 40 that’s a lot of years after to ‘retire’. I sense he has high salary expectations which no club will accommodate. Eventually he will have to drop those demands to get a club.

He almost surely does have higher wage demands. The big clubs already have keepers and the middle tier ones can’t afford him. This is before we even get to questions about his recent form.
 
Out of curiosity, has anyone ever done this? Not being close to retirement, then semi-retire only to make a comeback and play for another year or two. Take a break as an active footballer, i mean. At 32, De Gea is at the tail-end of his peak years as a goalkeeper. Is that the time to take a sabbatical? He should be craving to play football. The notion that the top-level clubs that shun him now will take a gamble on him after a whole year without any kind of competitive football seems more like the United faithful wearing their rose-tinted glasses on (can't blame that for happening to a degree) and less like a sound career decision.

I can’t think of any examples but then again few keepers have been on such astronomical wages for years where they have the leverage to take time off. He’s clearly done at the national level and won’t be playing for a big club anytime soon, so he does have the flexibility to take some time out for family considerations.
 
Better yet - pay £30m for Brighton's reserve keeper from last year - third choice at the time of signing him actually. And then another £12m or so on an MLS goalkeeper.

That narrative is slightly misleading. Sanchez started the majority of games for Brighton last season and his place in the pecking order this summer had as much to do with his falling out with the manager as it did with his ability.
 
Perhaps he's been told by his agent to wait as long as possible because there's a potential better offer in the cards and they're working on it. It's risky business because if it falls through, he'll find himself between a rock and a hard place. One can also argue that the goalkeeper position is a special one. I mean, he would probably take a short-term deal with a club like Real Betis (according to some very dodgy sources, he's in talks with them) to put himself in the market again, but this is one role on the pitch clubs usually opt for stability there.
 
Remember DeGea's first season he could not save a shot from more than 10 yards out.... the defence and midfield need time to adjust to the GK and vice versa, I cannot say that Onana has let in any howlers, there are maybe a couple where he could have maybe done better but he has been left exposed a lot, players free to shoot un-challenged from the edge of the area not making his life easy
Time will tell , and DDG was a very young inexperienced keeper when we got him from Athletico, so understandably his first season would be sketchy, Onana is a proven Keeper with experience for club and Country. The CM and CB are not helping granted, and that's where a good keeper earns his Stripes he's there to pull them out of the shit.. so far imo he hasn't done it . Hope he gets better along with the CM and CB..
 
That narrative is slightly misleading. Sanchez started the majority of games for Brighton last season and his place in the pecking order this summer had as much to do with his falling out with the manager as it did with his ability.
It's not really misleading though, because it is both true that he did lose his place last season and never looked like regaining it, and that he was third choice once they signed Verbruggen.

They did fall out, that much is clear, but by all accounts the fall out came due to his reaction to being dropped rather than being the reason he was dropped. He was dropped because he was having a very poor season and simply wasn't doing the things he had been doing well the previous season. Steele came in and did them much better. I think it's accepted that Verbruggen will likely take Steele's place at some stage and Sanchez wasn't getting back in.
 
What’s happened to De Gea says everything about his attitude to football and how long Man Utd spent overrating him. If we released Sancho tomorrow he would have similar issues finding a club that matched his opinion of himself, and several other of our players too.
 
Yes but it wasn’t him organising the defence that made it so great as the previous poster was alluding to.
Our defense was far from great last year, however many implied that DDG's inability to play as a "modern" GK prevented us playing a higher line, now this poster claims that we are playing one this year but are being destroyed because of it? So it wasn't the GK "holding us back" is my question?
 
Have you read the news lately?

I like Hojlund and Amrabat but we've barely seen them. What else has been good since the summer?
I agree that it is one big cluster feck so far but Onana certainly is not above others. He is even one of bigger disappointments for me because i expected much more from him. And so far, he offered basically nothing.
 
Yes but it wasn’t him organising the defence that made it so great as the previous poster was alluding to.
So, with Dave defence was good despite Dave on the goal.
This year defence sucks but it is not Onana's fault.

Gotcha.
 
What’s happened to De Gea says everything about his attitude to football and how long Man Utd spent overrating him. If we released Sancho tomorrow he would have similar issues finding a club that matched his opinion of himself, and several other of our players too.

Sancho would find a good club very quickly. He is still young.
 
I agree that it is one big cluster feck so far but Onana certainly is not above others. He is even one of bigger disappointments for me because i expected much more from him. And so far, he offered basically nothing.

He's been our best outfield player at times and you can't point to a single clear mistake so far. I had expected a fumble or something to get him crucified in the press but there's been nothing.
 
He's been our best outfield player at times and you can't point to a single clear mistake so far. I had expected a fumble or something to get him crucified in the press but there's been nothing.
His long balls have been bad. He's almost at a career worst pass success rate this season. Against Wolves he came out for a corner and missed the ball. I don't remember him going off the line since.

The disappointing thing with him is that he hasn't done anything special. He cost a lot of money and was touted as being a massive improvement over De Gea and we haven't gotten that yet.

I do think people are going overboard though. The off field stuff, injuries, only 5 games. Small sample size with a ton of variables. Hard to make judgements.
 
He's been our best outfield player at times and you can't point to a single clear mistake so far. I had expected a fumble or something to get him crucified in the press but there's been nothing.
That is not the way to look at Man Utd player. Especially those who are payed big money. They must stand out above the rest. These results we would be having with even Heaton on the goal.

And it is interesting how "gk must go out on crosses" brigade is quiet this season. Last few years nearly every bloody cross was followed with; "Why is Dave stuck on his line?".
Onana is literally the same in that area of play. Stuck on his line.
 
That is not the way to look at Man Utd player. Especially those who are payed big money. They must stand out above the rest. These results we would be having with even Heaton on the goal.

And it is interesting how "gk must go out on crosses" brigade is quiet this season. Last few years nearly every bloody cross was followed with; "Why is Dave stuck on his line?".
Onana is literally the same in that area of play. Stuck on his line.

Blame the press for that. First game he was aggressive off his line. Challenged a cross that 99% of keepers do every game and we had every newspaper in the country up in arms about it and an official apology to the opposition from the refereeing body.

Either the club has told him to stop or he has lost the confidence to do it from that.
 
No doubt people will start but De Gea had at least one of them in him every season
 
Not sure why this thread is being bumped? No matter how shit Onana turns out to be, letting DDG go was the correct decision. Or does anyone seriously think we should've stuck with him for another 4 years at 200k/week? Because those were the agreed terms when we pulled the contract offer.
 
De Gea made mistakes like this too. And lots of them. A lot of rose tinted glasses when it comes to Dave, he was full of awful errors.
 
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