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2021-22 Performances


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6.5 Season Average Rating
Appearances
46
Clean sheets
10
Goals
0
Assists
0
Yellow cards
0
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Oranges038

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Go on then, tell me about them. They had 4 shots on target and the only one that looked a decent stop at the game was from Cash but after seeing the replay, no PL goalkeeper should be letting that in. There was one in the first half from Buendia he ridiculously punched back out in the penalty area and was bloody lucky the striker was offside though. The other two "brilliant saves" were so brilliant they haven't even made any highlight packages from the game.

And I suppose we're ignoring Watkins hitting the bar when he could easily have come out and dealt with the ball off Lindelof's touch, the multiple other occasions he killed the defenders by not coming and dealing with the ball either on the ground or in the air, both disallowed goals where he was frankly pathetic, him kicking an uncontested ball directly out of play several times and him throwing the ball directly at a Villa players head? Other than those things, I'm sure he was great.
The disallowed goal was laughable keeping, he should be out claiming that first ball not flapping his wrist at the second one..

2 other instances, the one where Lindelof took a poor touch, he should actually be out looking to collect that off Lindelof as a pass first time, not coming out mopping up his poor touch, Lindelof has to take the touch because DDG isn't showing himself for the pass.

Then the one where Lindelof just hoofs it away, a quick shout from DDG and he can take it under and look to get on it and play the ball out left.

His kicking and distribution was so bad all night. All his saves were standard saves by most keepers metrics.
 

Marwood

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What’s got your goat fella?

He made multiple quality saves - without them we’d have been in the shit, the end.

I didn’t mention him not coming out or his distribution, which wasn’t good enough, but it’s funny how other keepers can make very similar mistakes as these without the good saves and people make excuse after excuse for them.
All goalkeepers make saves. It's the very basic part of the role. Most goalkeepes make last night's saves.

What most keepers don't do is close their eyes and bottle anything approaching physical contact.
 

Jim Beam

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There was a time when Van Gaal was in charge and he absolutely had much more confidence going out. Remember one game when he rushed out and picked a ball with one hand like he was on training between two attackers. His kicking was also pretty good, not elite but good.

Even when he came and everyone targeted him, he was coming out and dealt with it no matter if there is a mistake. He is just glued to the line now which I don't quite understand.


What I wanted to say, he for some reason, stopped being proactive. But, the narrative that he was always this version is false.

In any case, he is nor the problem with his back to best shot stopping, but it is frustrating as feck that he has this ability to raise his game when we are an absolute mess. It is like he thrives in that.

The less I say about teammates, better.
 

Based Adnan

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There was a time when Van Gaal was in charge and he absolutely had much more confidence going out. Remember one game when he rushed out and picked a ball with one hand like he was on training between two attackers. His kicking was also pretty good, not elite but good.

Even when he came and everyone targeted him, he was coming out and dealt with it no matter if there is a mistake. He is just glued to the line now which I don't quite understand.
Frans Hoek was working with him to become a more modern proactive goalkeeper and like you said, their were signs that he was improving in this aspect for a brief period.

Hoek later on post-United gave an interview and said he faced resistance from De Gea to his methods.

"If you are used to doing things a certain way all through your career and that way has made you become the goalkeeper of Manchester United and I bring you out of that then you are going to wonder what I am doing and why I am doing that," he says.

"But I am not afraid to do things that I am convinced make goalkeepers better. I do not look at the goalkeeper in isolation, I look at the total picture. You cannot look at it in any other way. It is all about the relationship of the goalkeeper with the team.

"For me it is no more than logical. The game changes so I need to change. The demands of the game change what we want from a goalkeeper. So how are we going to integrate that?

"When I look back over the years, I can say that during my 12 years at Ajax it was maybe 50-50 between isolated and integrated training. I still believed then that isolated training was important. I kept it like that for a while until it became maybe 70-30 in favour of integrated.

"At Manchester United, it was maybe 80 to 90 per cent with the team and only 10 to 20 per cent without the rest of the team. I can tell you that the goalkeepers did not like that.

"It was completely different to what they were used to. I was very stubborn because for me there was only one thing that counted – progression in the game. The problem was that the isolated practice was not always improving them. In fact, it was even making them worse."

How could that be the case? Surely facing shots is the best way of learning how to save shots in a game situation? Once again, Hoek has an answer. It is lengthy and persuasive.

"Think about isolated goalkeeper practice. It is just one person taking a shot. How often does that happen in a game? When the assistant coach was taking shots at me, after one practice I knew everything about his kick. There were no surprises. Nothing.

"Not only that, if I am talking about a game, I am talking about my team-mates, defending and attacking together as a team. So you have to work together and read the situations.

"I started that young with Victor Valdes and Pepe Reina at Barcelona because I knew that if they had trained together as part of the team then the only thing that mattered after that would be whether they could deal with the pressure of 100,000 people watching them.

"The phrase you always hear with goalkeepers is that the older they are the better they get. Why? It is because they are always practising in isolation and becoming better by playing games. So when a goalkeeper is 30 they have been playing 10 years and had 400 games.

"If you bring the game moments to the practice then he is going to recognise these game moments much earlier in his career so he will need less time to reach his peak.

"Edwin van der Sar was the number one at 22. Valdes at 20. Reina at 20. It is not exceptional as long as you have the right methodology to make them aware of the game situation.

"I don’t care about resistance. It is not about me. I do this because I want people to wake up and to confront them with different things. Make them think. My job is to provide the goalkeepers with the best coaching. That means being open. If you don’t agree, show me how you would do it. If someone thinks differently, perfect. But explain why."
Supposedly his unhappiness under Hoek was also a factor in wanting to leave for Real Madrid and also why he insisted on being able to pick his next goalkeeping coach where he went for his mate Alvarez from his Atletico days.
 

Pogue Mahone

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The aura of indecisiveness and uncertainty from him couldn’t be more obvious. And an absolute disaster when you consider how important calmness and authority is for a goalkeeper. Lindelof had a shocking game but you could see a lot of his own indecisiveness came from not having a keeper behind him ready to take charge. Timid, quiet and doesn’t dominate his six yard box never mind the defensive third. Our centre backs are constantly second guessing and forced into hurried decisions by De Gea’s passivity. He must be an absolute nightmare to play in front of.

No defender has a better view of what’s happening than the goalkeeper and he should be constantly barking orders and organising our defence. Can anyone who goes to games regularly tell me if they can hear De Gea doing this? Because you never hear a peep out of him via the tv coverage.
 

Red the Bear

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I don't know what happened to him in 2018, did the world cup break him? I Don't know. But he seems to really have found his footing with his shot stopping being top notch and generally fault less ,saved us many points but he still needs to up his control over the box , a slight improvement will do (can't ask more from a 32 year old keeper)
 

JB7

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The aura of indecisiveness and uncertainty from him couldn’t be more obvious. And an absolute disaster when you consider how important calmness and authority is for a goalkeeper. Lindelof had a shocking game but you could see a lot of his own indecisiveness came from not having a keeper behind him ready to take charge. Timid, quiet and doesn’t dominate his six yard box never mind the defensive third. Our centre backs are constantly second guessing and forced into hurried decisions by De Gea’s passivity. He must be an absolute nightmare to play in front of.

No defender has a better view of what’s happening than the goalkeeper and he should be constantly barking orders and organising our defence. Can anyone who goes to games regularly tell me if they can hear De Gea doing this? Because you never hear a peep out of him via the tv coverage.
Never, he occasionally opens his mouth after the event but while the ball is in play he's silent. It's all rather bizarre in truth.
 

T_Model101

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Have just seen on Reddit that he leads all keepers across the top 5 leagues for xG saved
Saving 0.4 goals per game (7.5 goals saved across 19 games)

Apparently we've faced 1.7xG per game, with only 11 keepers having to face more per game across the big 5 leagues

But obviously part of the problem...
 

Remember the geese

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Have just seen on Reddit that he leads all keepers across the top 5 leagues for xG saved
Saving 0.4 goals per game (7.5 goals saved across 19 games)

Apparently we've faced 1.7xG per game, with only 11 keepers having to face more per game across the big 5 leagues

But obviously part of the problem...
His shot stopping was poor over the last two or three years, but it's back at a world class level this season. It's the rest of his game that isn't up to scratch and I don't think it ever will be.
 

Idxomer

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The first decision of the next manager should be moving him on or relegating him permanently to the bench.

If that happens, you'll know the team is going in the right direction.
 

Oranges038

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Have just seen on Reddit that he leads all keepers across the top 5 leagues for xG saved
Saving 0.4 goals per game (7.5 goals saved across 19 games)

Apparently we've faced 1.7xG per game, with only 11 keepers having to face more per game across the big 5 leagues

But obviously part of the problem...
Faced 1.7xg per game and still concede on average 1.5 goals per game.

He's saved 7 goals - yet there's probably that amount again that he should have done much better on.
 

NewYorkRed

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The general opinion on DDG has me convinced the if most people on the caf ran the club we’d be a sunday league side in a couple years.

He’s the best player on the team, and its not particularly close. You can keep your xG xS xXYKLMN stats to yourself, my eyes don’t lie. He’s having a much better season than ederson and allison. He’s easily the best keeper in the league this year.
 

NewYorkRed

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The first decision of the next manager should be moving him on or relegating him permanently to the bench.

If that happens, you'll know the team is going in the right direction.
Is the right direction the championship in your eyes? Because that’s where we’d be headed this year without him.
 

NewYorkRed

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Is the right direction the championship in your eyes? Because that’s where we’d be headed this year without him.
Accidentally quoted myself while trying to edit a typo, I apologise. Is there a way to delete this? Thanks !
 

Glorio

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A Man United goal keeper has the highest amount of saves in the league - that's terrible!
 

Dec9003

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He made good saves as you would expect him too, and a couple of times refused to come off his line as we would expect him to. He’s been far busier than he should be at a club like United, but given his skill set that probably works in his favour.
 

Pat Cat

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Antiquated keeper who's miraculously managing to pull the wool over the eyes of the masses again. Distribution was beyond awful and a big reason we couldn't build from the back. I give up if he isn't moved on in the summer.
 

Paxi

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Antiquated keeper who's miraculously managing to pull the wool over the eyes of the masses again. Distribution was beyond awful and a big reason we couldn't build from the back. I give up if he isn't moved on in the summer.
You remind me that our newbie system is antiquated.
 

calodo2003

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Okay, we can debate anecdotal one offs or his overall hand distribution. His distro with his hand is far superior to his distro with his feet. He can actually unlock things with his hands. I just wish he looked to do it more often.
 

LJJT

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Okay, we can debate anecdotal one offs or his overall hand distribution. His distro with his hand is far superior to his distro with his feet. He can actually unlock things with his hands. I just wish he looked to do it more often.
His “distribution” is shit. Just like his coming off the line and being a modern keeper is shit. He faces 20 shots a game and saves 90% of them and gets player of the year but he’s not good enough in the modern game. Forget the fact he’s a coward.
 

Kerry Donaghy

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If you watched that match today and didn't realise how much of a problem his poor distribution is then I really give up.
We have absolutely zero chance of controlling possession if he's just going to kick the ball out of play or straight to an opponent with most of his passes.
This alongside the usual timidness, being rooted to the line, zero communication or organisation with his backline and zero command/authority of his box.
He's 100% the only goal-keeper on the planet that has nothing at all to say to his defenders when they're getting set up to defend a corner, as a goalkeeper and, a senior player now, he should be taking charge and organising the defence but time and time again he says and does nothing apart from shout "awayyyy" as the ball comes in, it's infuriating.
As I've said many many times before, the only way in which anyone could convince me that De Gea is not a massive liability would be if goalkeeping was all about shot-stopping but it's not, that's a fact and always has been.
It's not that he's just ok or below average at the other aspects, he's absolutely atrocious at all of them.
At this level of elite sport, fine margins are everything and I'm genuinely baffled how anyone who knows anything about football can watch a Man Utd match and not notice how much of a major problem this is for us.

Side note, I'm well aware that the outfield players were equally shambolic with their ball retention today but the difference is they actually get criticism for it whereas De Gea gets made out to be our saviour.
So long as he is our goalkeeper we will remain a mid-table side, fact.
 
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