Nah, I didn't misread your post, I just disagree. Which games do you think ddg has been given motm for where he's performed worse than Henderson did on fri?
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Well he just got player of the month for a month of performances that were no better than Henderson on Friday, so we can start with that?
From looking over the match day info on here he got MOTM against City, Liverpool & Leicester despite being massively at fault for goals in those games?
I said he's having his best ever season in terms of shot-stopping. And statistically he is, by far.
+0.44 PSxG+/- per 90, compared to +0.23 in 17/18. He literally tops all other goalkeepers in Europe's top five leagues in that measure this season.
That doesn't mean he isn't at fault in other ways. But given he's currently on course to save approx. 17 goals above average this season, he would need to be quite literally throwing them in.
I don’t think he was at fault for the goal at all. The guy who handballed it was in acres of space and the gk would have to close that space down. Our full back was out of position / caught up the pitch and the centre back had been pulled across. The goal shouldn’t have even stood either in my opinion (due to the handball).
I mean that's great and all but it doesn't actually make Henderson good, it just means he's more confident / prefers coming out and sweeping. Being an average sweeper keeper doesn't make you better than De Gea, you have to actually do it really well.
Forget the De Gea comparisons, where would you rank Henderson compared to the rest of the PL's goalkeepers?
It’s why I think he deserves a prolonged run in the team to really find out. He had a good run in the team last year and we did well collectively but then had a horrible game in the 4-2 home defeat to Liverpool, and had hardly had a look in since.
We do have enough evidence on DdG though and he is sorely lacking in aspects of his game. Which is why I think we need to move on from him.
I’m not saying Hendo is the right answer, as we don’t have enough to go by, but he should be given a good run in the team to see if he can do it on a full time basis.
It’s harsh to judge him too much after playing so little this season. We’ve wasted him this year, with Heston coming back he should’ve been allowed to leave.
So statistically De Gea has been one of the best keepers in the league this year. Suppose we move him on and give Henderson a season and it turns out he's average, what's the next plan?
Then you buy a goalkeeper that suits the defenders and how we want to play. De Gea does not do that and never will, Henderson definitely is a better fit for the defence and might be good enough but might not be. If he's not good enough then you move on.
The handball is irrelevant to the fact Henderson was in no mans land, the lad who handballed it pinged it over his head to a player running in, that shouldn’t happen regardless of if it’s handball or not. In fact, on top of that, Henderson (and others) were all guilty of being more interested in the handball than the whistle, which is criminal.
It’s fine to say you’d rather a keeper that plays that way, sometimes it’ll work for you and others it won’t, pretending that he didn’t feck up doesn’t help your point at all, and just makes it look like you have some sort of agenda
I do think he’d be decent at a mid table side, with potential to kick on under less pressure than he’d be under here. He looked good last season when De Gea was on his paternity leave but the second Dave was back on the bench and Henderson needed to perform he started to wilt, which was underpinned by that shocker against Liverpool. Put him in Newcastle’s net and it may work out brilliant for him and them long term.
Thats just wrong, sorry.
Go on then talk me through it.
Ok, so your assertion that ddg's player of the month was for a month's worth of performances that were no better than Henderson performance on Friday is incorrect
Specifically which performance was better?
To be fair here he's in no mans land because of the handball. Watch it. He literally moves on the players touch and the handball changes the entire trajectory of the ball.
He carried on for several steps before realising he’d messed up and starting to claim for the handball, because he knew what he’d done and claiming the handball meant he might have got away with his mistake if it had been pulled up. If he doesn’t mess up he probably does what he should have done anyway and played to the whistle.
Yeah I think it's safe to say physics isn't your strong point is it?
As for playing to the whistle, firstly, are you expecting him to jump 10 foot in the air to stop the ball going over his head? And secondly, didn't he have to watch his glorified mentor lie down pretending to be injured on his goal-line with his back to play a few weeks back?
He shouldn’t have been there to be lobbed is exactly my point, then he wouldn’t need to jump ten feet, as you are a professor of physics surely you must understand that? He didn’t play to the whistle because he knew he fecked up, as anybody with eyes can see.
As for De Gea against Arsenal, I laid into him too, because quite frankly I don’t care who fecks up, they’ll get stick equally.
Based on which stats? I'm assuming he's excelling in shot stopping and shot stopping only. There was a graphic posted not too long ago showing he's quite far behind some of his contemporaries in other facets of goalkeeping.
I mentioned the handball only to say the goal shouldn't have stood, but if you watch their goal again, I'd like to know what you'd have Hendo do differently? Again, the guy that handballed it was in acres of space and Hendo had to close it down or he'd get a clean shot off on goal. Unfortunately for us he had the presence of mind to loop it to Crooks on the far post who had an empty goal to hit it into.
If the goalkeeper had stayed on his line when the ball was with the handball player, we'd be lambasting him.
If he’d stayed where he started (not on the line, a few yards out and on the front post) he’d actually have been in a pretty damn good position to me a stop or get across if the ball was passed.
What? I mean, you're really reaching here to find something to criticise Henderson for.
Here's the goal - I don't see anything wrong with his positioning or the steps he tried to take to stop the chance.
He was caught in no mans land, blatantly, it’s why the ball was passed over him with absolute ease. As I said, if he’d stayed put it would have been a good position, he just got a rush of blood to the head and messed up as a result.
And again I’d like to reiterate, Maguire, Pogba, Varane all also mess up, it’s not all on him, but to say he didn’t is just wrong.
That's nonsense. If he stayed put, the handball guy would have pulled the trigger and had pretty much the whole goal to aim at. At least he closed him down to make it difficult.
He should though, the player took a poor touch and he was out to him. It was absolutely the correct thing to do. The fact the lad was allowed to play basketball to bring the ball down isn't the fault of the goalkeeper doing his job. You've appeared to criticise him for not stopping charging out in that 0.3 of a second which would've essentially been impossible.
Had he stood on his line the lad would have had a free shot at goal when the ball came down with the goalkeeper looking the smallest he can look & by extension the goal looking as big as it can look.
I appreciate you're clearly looking for something to fault him for and that's your prerogative but this is absolute nonsense.
Ddg vs Brentford
Also his performance against wolves was better than Henderson on friday.
Yep thought you’d say that & at the ground I thought he’d had a worldie but in reality when you look back at the game & highlights every save was a save you’d expect a PL goalkeeper to make, not really any different to the stops Henderson made on Friday.
Yeah that’s not true, name one save that literally any other PL keeper doesn’t make. In reality that night he was given a lesson in goalkeeping by Jose Sa whose all round game was exceptional.
He was brilliant against Brentford, if you were at the game you'd have seen that. If you genuinely believe that Henderson is up to DDG standards then I don't know how to help you. I suspect, though, that you're just too entrenched now to change your mind.
Against wolves, I believe he tipped one over the bar that was pretty great.
He is not even in top 10. Sounds harsh but;
Allison, Ederson, Mendy, DDG, Lloris, Pickford, Sa, Schmeichel, Ramsdale and Martinez are better than him without question.
As i said before; if was in another club, not a single fan would want him here.
Elite tier:
Alisson, Ederson
Very Good:
De Gea, Mendy, Martinez
Good PL keepers:
Kasper, Areola, Sa, Lloris, Pope, Guaita
High potential:
Ramsdale, Meslier, Sanchez
Average:
Raya, Pickford, Henderson, Krul
Lower tier:
Dubravka, McCarthy, Bachmann/Foster
Henderson falls somewhere between average and lower for me. Undersized keeper who excels at nothing. Wouldn't be close to our radar if he wasn't already at the club.
Pretty much why Foster failed.
People like to compare Henderson to Foster when in actual fact DDG is more like Foster. A goal line keeper who is afraid to leave the comfort of his line and has doesn't want to be involved in the play aside from making saves. Everything he doesn't do is expected from keepers at every level of the game. I very much think we need to move on from him to much more rounded keeper.
We saw last year how much better the defence and results were when Henderson was given an extended run. I would like to see it again, then if it doesn't work out, go and find another keeper.
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As I said, I thought he was great at the game. It was only when I looked at the highlights the next day that I saw that they were regulation saves that you’d expect any PL keeper to make. And as for the stop you mentioned against Wolves was a classic camera save that any goalkeeper over 5ft6 should be stopping.
At no point have I said Henderson is better than him btw. The issue is that De Gea is not suited to how we want to play or the defenders in front of him. Henderson is better suited. Whether he’s the answer long term I don’t know, he may well not be, but De Gea definitely is not and a lot of our defensive issues are exacerbated by him being glued to his line in all circumstances. A problem which in fairness did generally go away during the one run in the team Henderson was given.
I just watched the ddg vs Brentford highlights back to see if I was misremembering but no, he was excellent. Also, it's very easy to say they were saves that every PL goalkeeper should be making. I disagree with that, but it's also the fact that he made them all, one after another. All the coverage flags up now good he was - I honestly don't see how you can argue that point.
As for whether Henderson better suits the way we want to play...again, the only significant advantage he has over ddg is that he's more proactive and willing to leave his line. He's not much better with his feet.
I haven’t said I thought he was bad in that game. He made saves I would expect him to make & did that, that’s a pretty standard game for a goalkeeper. He was fine, which is basically what Henderson was on Friday.
And well that in itself is a pretty massive advantage given that Ralf wants us to play with a higher line when defending and play mainly in our opponents half in possession.
The first two headlines when you search David de gea brentford'?
David De Gea Comes To Manchester United's Rescue Again With Superb First-Half Performance Against Brentford
David de Gea was 'like a brick wall' and now has the most saves in the Premier League this season
'pretty standard saves' indeedNot diving properly/fully - half-efforts.
This discussion really shouldn't be in the Henderson thread.
But for me it comes down to this: I think United need a better all round 'keeper than DDG.
And Henderson is better all round than DDG. Plus, he's free. Which is why people are pushing for him to be given a chance. Whether he's good enough in the long term is another question. But if he isn't, I would happily take someone like Martinez from Villa instead (who I think is brilliant).
It's the team's style of play that's at the heart of this. It's like debating over wanting AWB or Dalot in the first team. The former is statistically brilliant, with a spectacular highlight reel, world class stopping ability and he even got a decent record last season with impressive xA numbers. But the latter is more reliable in a wider variety of situations that the current team tactics require (even if you are losing out on some jaw dropping 1 v 1 MOTD moments).
Whatever the case, wanting to try Henderson isn't about thinking DDG is shit. He isn't. He's great. But Henderson didn't do anything to harm his reputation yesterday. And he certainly didn't do any better or worse than DDG would have done.
But for me it comes down to this: I think United need a better all round 'keeper than DDG.
And Henderson is better all round than DDG. Plus, he's free. Which is why people are pushing for him to be given a chance. Whether he's good enough in the long term is another question. But if he isn't, I would happily take someone like Martinez from Villa instead (who I think is brilliant).
It's the team's style of play that's at the heart of this. It's like debating over wanting AWB or Dalot in the first team. The former is statistically brilliant, with a spectacular highlight reel, world class stopping ability and he even got a decent record last season with impressive xA numbers. But the latter is more reliable in a wider variety of situations that the current team tactics require (even if you are losing out on some jaw dropping 1 v 1 MOTD moments).
Whatever the case, wanting to try Henderson isn't about thinking DDG is shit. He isn't. He's great. But Henderson didn't do anything to harm his reputation yesterday. And he certainly didn't do any better or worse than DDG would have done.
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