The successor to David de Gea

[Grande]

There is alot on inaccuracies in your post.

First of all ETH has never met Dean Henderson he didn't send him on loan, Henderson asked for the loan before ETH was even at the club and it was all approved and signed off long before pre-season started.

The argument about coming off the line vs staying on the line. What scientific study are you talking about? Generally speaking being more pro active and commanding your box as a GK (as long as you are competent at doing it) means less chances against, less corners against, less goals against and more possession for your team. Occansionly off course there are times where it would be better to stay on your line but that is normally the exception rather than the rule.

Also laughable that you think Ferguson and Solskjaer didn't encourage playing out from the back. They definitely did, Ferguson maybe not as much but Solskjaer definitely did it was one of our achilles heels under him (i wonder why) apart from the short period where Henderson was in nets where remarkably we looked like a good side, capable of keeping possession and playing a high line.

I am sure there are, thanks for pointing them out

You are presumably right about the Henderson case, which @JB7 also pointed out. What I still find interesting is that this would mean Ten Hag came in knowing De Gea and Heaton where his full coverage. It would seem strange to me if Ten Hag would use more than an afternoon in June to assess De Gea’s goalkeeping stats and make a decision about wether De Gea was a dreadful keeper who would destroy his ideas for playing style, ie wether a new first keeper should be on top of the list with De Jong, or wether De Gea to him seemed like a very good keeper and a good candidate for being his no 1, leaving GK position as a 6th priority looking for back up keepers like Dubravka rather than new no 1 candidates.

Coming of the line - I can’t remember where I read what. I took some coaching badges some years back, and sometimes read some discussions over tctics and styles, but I’m no encyclopedia at all. I remember Jim Leighton, as FA instructor of keeper coaching, said coming off the line for one on ones was Generally a bit overrated, and I remember reading a piece on corners problematizing going to the six yard line vs staying in the box. I also remember a Norwegian NT goalkeeper and pundit (Erik Thorstvedt) saying that both cautious and proactive approaches can work at the top level, depending on the characteristics of the keeper and the defenders. This makes me doubt people who say stuff like only proactive keepers can be good and others are dinosaurs etc.

I don’t think I wrote that F and S generally didn’t encourage playing out from the back? However, they were no strangers to going the direct route with long balls from the keeper or from a defender, and they definately always wanted that option.

 

[Tarrou]

I’d go for Sanchez

I miss having a big cnut in goal

 

[JB7]

First, I reread my post to find where I implied to know anything about your qualifications regarding goalkeeping. I couldn’t find it, maybe I missed it?
What I did find, was the effect argumenting for something long enough does to some people. This applies for professionals even, at times.

You seem to know a lot about goalkeeping, I presume a lot more than players who voted De Gea best United player last season. They aren’t goalkeeper coaches, so it is imaginable that they would vote an awful player as their player of the year. Player of the year at the sixth beat club of the best league, an awful player surely couldn’t do that? If you are, in fact Goalkeeping coach in the PL, I accept that you know much more than them, even if it’s them who time and time again has to clear up their POTY’s mess, defend his absence or get blamed for the passes he sets them up with. They are after all not goalkeeper coaches, far from it. I’m more plussed why Solskjær, after pushing out Alvarez and after giving Henderson a chance, reverted back to De Gea, and Rangnik continued to stick with him. Do they know nothing about goalkeeping? Don’t they have very accomplished goalkeeping coaches to debate with? Would they, up against the wall, keep sticking to an awful goalkeeper? Henderson must have been horrific at training, even before he started to complain. I am also surprised if Erik Ten Hag arrived at United in premio June, with his famed fancy for detail and preparation - not knowing that the one goalkeeper remaining was utterly incompetent, impossible to suit to his football, even though a few easy searches in stats banks or social media could tell him so. Because if he knew what you say is easily obtainable knowledge and plainly evident, that De Gea is in fact awful as a goalkeeper, and completely horrific with his feet, Ten Hag must have prioritized a new first goalkeeper even ahead of De Jong. He’d be mad not to. Or grossly incompetent.

it’s that, or it’s that De Gea isn’t awful or useless, but rather a very good keeper, a better keeper still than probably any PL goalkeeping coach now ever was (I’m guessing). A keeper with weak points. A keeper with limitations. A keeper maybe on the wane. But I find it hard to believe a PL Goalkeeper coach, knowing what it takes to be at that level, would call him awful, unless he had argued himself into an irrational dislike, defending an exaggerated position as if it was mere fact.

At the end of the day last season was embarrassing all round and there were only really two options for player of the season because there were only two players that offered any prolonged periods of reasonable form, one at either end of the pitch, both with their faults as well as their plus points. One won the supporters player of the year, one won the players player of the year. De Gea isn't a goalkeeper I would pick at any level of football because he's simply not my type of goalkeeper. He's not the type of goalkeeper I was and he's not the type of goalkeeper to be successful in any proactive football team due to his limitations nowadays, had he been more willing to work with Hoek earlier in his career that may be different, but we will never know, all we know is that he strongly resisted the integrated style of training (in my view, the correct style of training) and as soon as Hoek was moved on, recommended his old coach to the club who allowed him to return to a far higher percentage of individual work which in turn led to him reverting to being a goal-line goalkeeper which became more evident year on year. Under Mourinho that was acceptable, he was happy with a goal-line goalkeeper because his teams defended much deeper, as we tried to move forward under Solskjaer it became a problem. Solskjaer did turn to Henderson, which yielded considerable on-field improvements in the back end of 20/21 despite two or three high profile errors from Henderson. He caught Covid at the wrong time and De Gea started last season at career-high levels in terms of PSxG, despite conceding 21 goals in the 12 league games before Solskjaer was sacked, which is why he didn't drop him. Rangnick, the less said the better, he said the only position we didn't need to sign a player was in goal while residing over a period that De Gea was massively into the minus PSxG as well as being literally the worst goalkeeper in the league at dealing with crosses and sweeping, so god knows what he was thinking.

I would imagine that Ten Hag would have looked back at De Gea under LVG, while knowing he was in the final year of a contract that rendered him unsellable, and thought that he could work with him for a year. It wouldn't have been my position having watched him week in, week out, but I can understand why he would think that De Gea can play how he wants him to after seeing him those years ago while he'd been working with Hoek, and also considering he brought in 5 players who are likely to be important first teamers throughout the season, maybe he thought that a goalkeeper as well would be a bridge too far or unnecessary use of the initial budget. Obviously, I am no fan of De Gea but I expected him to be better than he has been with the ball at his feet than he has been this season and I've been watching him week in, week out for many years now, so I can completely understand why a manager coming in would have certain expectations despite any statistical analysis. However, it took two games for that opinion to clearly shift, we were very credibly linked with Yann Sommer and Kevin Trapp, the Trapp link being confirmed by the player, both of whom being goalkeepers more suited to Ten Hag's usual expectations for a goalkeeper. They didn't come in and in the subsequent games we stopped playing out from the goalkeeper in defensive areas, and the defenders dropped deeper to offer more protection to the goalkeeper. Are we pretending that is coincidental?

You may well be correct in that "awful" is somewhat strong, it probably is although given his one redeeming factor is that he's supposedly a world class shot-stopper despite only having half a season of world class shot-stopping in the past four and a half years, and as such I don't think he is realistically a choice for a team aiming to win trophies in the future, unless it is for a manager who is happy for his team to sit deep and defend as a tight unit with two aerially dominant centre halves in front of him. Also, just to clarify on the PSxG, I haven't cherry picked it at all, the statistics only go back as far as 2017/18, so I gave the information for the full five seasons available, both good and bad.

Coming of the line - I can’t remember where I read what. I took some coaching badges some years back, and sometimes read some discussions over tctics and styles, but I’m no encyclopedia at all. I remember Jim Leighton, as FA instructor of keeper coaching, said coming off the line for one on ones was Generally a bit overrated, and I remember reading a piece on corners problematizing going to the six yard line vs staying in the box. I also remember a Norwegian NT goalkeeper and pundit (Erik Thorstvedt) saying that both cautious and proactive approaches can work at the top level, depending on the characteristics of the keeper and the defenders. This makes me doubt people who say stuff like only proactive keepers can be good and others are dinosaurs etc.

I just wanted to respond to this briefly. I'm not saying that only proactive goalkeepers can work or that others are dinosaurs. Goalkeepers who dominate their six-yard box (and beyond) have been around for a very long time, as have goalkeepers that come out at attackers running clean through on goal, these aren't modern innovations like some would have you believe. The major issue, as Thorstvedt has said, is that the defenders and goalkeeper have to be aligned, and we have not had that for a number of years, we have had defenders who want their goalkeeper to come and a goalkeeper who wants his defenders to deal with it. There is a middle ground between a highly proactive goalkeeper and a goalkeeper who stays rooted to his line for balls into the box, which is why the average for a goalkeeper to deal with crosses is a rate of around 7-9%, it's not hugely proactive but shows the goalkeeper will deal with certain types of balls into the box to take the pressure off where required, which is what De Gea very very rarely does. This is where Hoek's training was so important, a cautious goalkeeper can be successful if the defenders are aligned to that methodology of goalkeeping, but if the goalkeeper spends the majority of their time training away from the team, then building up that relationship is difficult. Equally that is becoming more and more difficult with teams playing higher lines and goalkeepers being expected to sweep more often than in years gone by, as we have seen the majority of successful teams over the past 15/20 years have had a goalkeeper closer to the proactive end of the scale than the cautious end. In terms of Jim Leighton's comment referenced, I don't disagree, although I highly doubt he is suggesting the goalkeeper stay completely on his line, rather to take up a position 3/4 yards from goal so that the angles are covered for diving comfortably in either direction and to both force the striker into making a decision and be set & ready for the shot on goal, it's actually something De Gea sometimes does very well and sometimes doesn't because of how predictable he is, because there are occasions where it is better to come all the way out and force the attacker into an early decision. Of course, the extreme opposite of this is Ederson, who often comes too far too soon, which I would say averages out to be no better in terms of one-on-one success; it is a situation where you don't want to be an extreme one way or the other like De Gea & Ederson are because it makes it easier for the striker knowing what the goalkeeper is likely to do.

 

[kaku06]

I would be happy with Sanchez or Raya.

Who would you go for if have to pick one ?

Sanchez for me. 24 yrs, 1.97m, great all rounder, extremely confident and a bit of a fiery character.

Raya is 26 yrs, 1.83m, good passer and shot stopper but a bit shakey on set pieces.

 

[Grande]

At the end of the day last season was embarrassing all round and there were only really two options for player of the season because there were only two players that offered any prolonged periods of reasonable form, one at either end of the pitch, both with their faults as well as their plus points. One won the supporters player of the year, one won the players player of the year. De Gea isn't a goalkeeper I would pick at any level of football because he's simply not my type of goalkeeper. He's not the type of goalkeeper I was and he's not the type of goalkeeper to be successful in any proactive football team due to his limitations nowadays, had he been more willing to work with Hoek earlier in his career that may be different, but we will never know, all we know is that he strongly resisted the integrated style of training (in my view, the correct style of training) and as soon as Hoek was moved on, recommended his old coach to the club who allowed him to return to a far higher percentage of individual work which in turn led to him reverting to being a goal-line goalkeeper which became more evident year on year. Under Mourinho that was acceptable, he was happy with a goal-line goalkeeper because his teams defended much deeper, as we tried to move forward under Solskjaer it became a problem. Solskjaer did turn to Henderson, which yielded considerable on-field improvements in the back end of 20/21 despite two or three high profile errors from Henderson. He caught Covid at the wrong time and De Gea started last season at career-high levels in terms of PSxG, despite conceding 21 goals in the 12 league games before Solskjaer was sacked, which is why he didn't drop him. Rangnick, the less said the better, he said the only position we didn't need to sign a player was in goal while residing over a period that De Gea was massively into the minus PSxG as well as being literally the worst goalkeeper in the league at dealing with crosses and sweeping, so god knows what he was thinking.

I would imagine that Ten Hag would have looked back at De Gea under LVG, while knowing he was in the final year of a contract that rendered him unsellable, and thought that he could work with him for a year. It wouldn't have been my position having watched him week in, week out, but I can understand why he would think that De Gea can play how he wants him to after seeing him those years ago while he'd been working with Hoek, and also considering he brought in 5 players who are likely to be important first teamers throughout the season, maybe he thought that a goalkeeper as well would be a bridge too far or unnecessary use of the initial budget. Obviously, I am no fan of De Gea but I expected him to be better than he has been with the ball at his feet than he has been this season and I've been watching him week in, week out for many years now, so I can completely understand why a manager coming in would have certain expectations despite any statistical analysis. However, it took two games for that opinion to clearly shift, we were very credibly linked with Yann Sommer and Kevin Trapp, the Trapp link being confirmed by the player, both of whom being goalkeepers more suited to Ten Hag's usual expectations for a goalkeeper. They didn't come in and in the subsequent games we stopped playing out from the goalkeeper in defensive areas, and the defenders dropped deeper to offer more protection to the goalkeeper. Are we pretending that is coincidental?

You may well be correct in that "awful" is somewhat strong, it probably is although given his one redeeming factor is that he's supposedly a world class shot-stopper despite only having half a season of world class shot-stopping in the past four and a half years, and as such I don't think he is realistically a choice for a team aiming to win trophies in the future, unless it is for a manager who is happy for his team to sit deep and defend as a tight unit with two aerially dominant centre halves in front of him. Also, just to clarify on the PSxG, I haven't cherry picked it at all, the statistics only go back as far as 2017/18, so I gave the information for the full five seasons available, both good and bad.

I just wanted to respond to this briefly. I'm not saying that only proactive goalkeepers can work or that others are dinosaurs. Goalkeepers who dominate their six-yard box (and beyond) have been around for a very long time, as have goalkeepers that come out at attackers running clean through on goal, these aren't modern innovations like some would have you believe. The major issue, as Thorstvedt has said, is that the defenders and goalkeeper have to be aligned, and we have not had that for a number of years, we have had defenders who want their goalkeeper to come and a goalkeeper who wants his defenders to deal with it. There is a middle ground between a highly proactive goalkeeper and a goalkeeper who stays rooted to his line for balls into the box, which is why the average for a goalkeeper to deal with crosses is a rate of around 7-9%, it's not hugely proactive but shows the goalkeeper will deal with certain types of balls into the box to take the pressure off where required, which is what De Gea very very rarely does. This is where Hoek's training was so important, a cautious goalkeeper can be successful if the defenders are aligned to that methodology of goalkeeping, but if the goalkeeper spends the majority of their time training away from the team, then building up that relationship is difficult. Equally that is becoming more and more difficult with teams playing higher lines and goalkeepers being expected to sweep more often than in years gone by, as we have seen the majority of successful teams over the past 15/20 years have had a goalkeeper closer to the proactive end of the scale than the cautious end. In terms of Jim Leighton's comment referenced, I don't disagree, although I highly doubt he is suggesting the goalkeeper stay completely on his line, rather to take up a position 3/4 yards from goal so that the angles are covered for diving comfortably in either direction and to both force the striker into making a decision and be set & ready for the shot on goal, it's actually something De Gea sometimes does very well and sometimes doesn't because of how predictable he is, because there are occasions where it is better to come all the way out and force the attacker into an early decision. Of course, the extreme opposite of this is Ederson, who often comes too far too soon, which I would say averages out to be no better in terms of one-on-one success; it is a situation where you don't want to be an extreme one way or the other like De Gea & Ederson are because it makes it easier for the striker knowing what the goalkeeper is likely to do.

Thanks for a long and interesting response, some of the best I’ve read in here. It helps to see were you are coming from, that you also have your tastes and beliefs as a goalkeeper and about coaching methods. You clearly have much more knowledge than me about goalkeeping and coaching, and the nuances makes for a interesting read. It is to me exactly what is lacking in huge scores of posts around here that declare NT players as talentless catastrophes and sought after coaches as brainless dinosaurs all too often.

I’m curious on your takes on a few things, given your interest, wether you have any take on them as a keeper:

Do you have an idea as to why De Gea felt so strongly about Hoek’s training methods that he was trying to leave United?

Emilio Alvarez seems to have done a lot of important work developping keepers at Atletico, yet he left United on a sour note in 2019, when Richard Hartis came in. What would Alvarez and Hartis say about De Gea’s development as a goalkeeper last year and this, would you guess?

What kind of goalkeeper training does Ten Hag want? Integrated or separate, and why?

Do you think Dubravka will start vs City and the next PL games before the WC?

All fair if you don’t want to answer, I’m just nerdily curious about your (nuanced) takes on this stuff. Have a good day!

 

[largelyworried]

All right, so you stuck to another poster’s cherrypicking, and then accused me of cherrypicking.

Cherry picking is where you choose a small selection of data from a larger dataset, because those pieces of data in isolation make it look like the result you want. What you're accusing me is the opposite of cherry picking, that I'm choosing too large a data set in order to ignore the smaller piece of data that is most relevant.

Unless you're now arguing that we should be looking at a much longer period than four years? Which is not what you said originally, but if you are, let me know and I'll respond to that.

I think it’s interesting why De Gea was so good until 2017-18, and why he deteriorated so much at an early age for the seasons 2018-19 and up to 2020-21. I’m also interested in why he was so good in 2021-22 season, up until somewhere into the Rangnik era. And why he fell back after that. Then I’m interested in why he was surprisingly bad against Brentford, and why he’s been good since then.

I think ‘was good before/is bad now’ is simplistic, and badly explains the changes in form. This includes any ‘reflexes’, ‘stylistic dinosaur’ explanations.

I think a few people here struggle to explain how he could play half a season with recordbreaking S/xG last season. Their reasons for his demise doesn’t gel well with this period, whereas his deflation along with the entire reat of the team under Rangnik, is very easily explained by more than one factor.

I think playing style, coaching style, confidence and motivation comes into it. In a way complex enough that Ten Hag managed to beat Liverpool and Arsenal in consecutive home games with him in goal, a few games after the Brentford horrorshow.

I am interested to see wether Ten Hag will now use the mourning/international break to drill the team with Dubravka, our new Slovakian Right winger/sweeper keeper as our new no 1, or wether he will continue with De Gea for a while. I suspect the latter, but I’m not certain.

This is now switching lanes from assessing his performance itself, to looking at the reasons for his performance. The point I made originally is that people often frame the debate over De Gea as good shot stopper vs good at other stuff, and how getting another keeper might mean us losing his excellent shot stopping ability. This is nothing to do with the reasons for his form.

I'm not too interested in why a player plays well or badly, since that is basically unknowable. It can be interesting to wonder, but using this kind of stuff to predict the future is basically guess work. But assessing whether De Gea is a good shot stopper right now is something much easier to do. And the data shows he hasn't been a consistently good shot stopper for a long time now. His form picked up briefly last season, but not for long, and it was very much the exception.

Indeed, now I look at the data properly, his good form was actually only for a 10 game period running from Villareal away til Brentford away. From the start of the season until Ole was sacked, he was average - his performance against PSxG was +0.04, completely ordinary and nowhere near elite level. After Brentford away til the end of the season it was -0.2, which is pretty poor.

It certainly is interesting that he had that good spell, but its such an exception to his performance in the rest of last season, and for several seasons before, and the current season, that I don't think you can really say that its in any way indicative of him being a good shot stopper.

 

[Bebestation]

I’m not sure Maignan is that great. It’s not that he is bad but it’s more that he isn’t that great from the little I’ve seen him.

He looks like a goalkeeper who makes simple saves look spectacular.

 

[JB7]

I’m curious on your takes on a few things, given your interest, wether you have any take on them as a keeper:

Do you have an idea as to why De Gea felt so strongly about Hoek’s training methods that he was trying to leave United?

Emilio Alvarez seems to have done a lot of important work developping keepers at Atletico, yet he left United on a sour note in 2019, when Richard Hartis came in. What would Alvarez and Hartis say about De Gea’s development as a goalkeeper last year and this, would you guess?

What kind of goalkeeper training does Ten Hag want? Integrated or separate, and why?

Do you think Dubravka will start vs City and the next PL games before the WC?

All fair if you don’t want to answer, I’m just nerdily curious about your (nuanced) takes on this stuff. Have a good day!

Thank you, I'm glad it was of interest and not too boring of a post! I didn't realise how long it was until I re-read it this morning

I'll attempt to answer your questions, you'll appreciate it will largely be opinion based but I'll do my best.

I don't necessarily think De Gea wanting to leave was down to the coaching methods, I would certainly hope not anyway, it was clear that he didn't get on with LVG, I think that much is public knowledge which obviously didn't help matters but at the time he had been in Manchester only 4/5 years I think and his girlfriend was still living in Madrid. So I think him wanting to leave was more about returning to Madrid than because he didn't enjoy the work under LVG/Hoek, I'd be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt in that instance, I think not enjoying training methods would be an poor reason to want to leave, particularly where it was proving to be successful on the field.

In terms of the views of Hartis & Alvarez, it's very hard to say. Alvarez obviously left for non-footballing reasons but it is interesting to note he's not been back in football since leaving United nearly 3 years ago despite at the time claiming he wanted to be back soon. Given the length of time he worked with De Gea I would imagine he is proud of the goalkeeper he became, as a young player he was very clearly a goal-line goalkeeper and he's very much that now, though he has regressed more and more onto his line year on year since Alvarez left the club, so I could be wrong in that instance. That said, I'd expect that when he goes through periods like early season last season where he is stopping shots at a considerably above average rate he would be happy - obviously I'd disagree with that - but I can't imagine Alvarez or Hartis would have been overly unhappy during late 2021. I'd like to think they've been critical of him this calendar year but based on the interviews De Gea was giving, certainly at the back end of last season, I have my doubts. I'm surprised Hartis is still with the club in truth, he'd been at clubs with Solskjaer previously and I did some light research on him when he joined and it appeared that the majority of goalkeepers he had worked with previously had been goal-line type goalkeepers, I thought Ten Hag might bring a goalkeeping coach with him.

I would be astonished in Ten Hag doesn't want a high majority of integrated training. In the past he has favoured playing out from the back and including the goalkeeper in the passage of play, as such it is clearly vital for the goalkeeper to be included within team training. It is also obviously important for the defensive structure, as the goalkeeper is a part of that whether he wants to be or not. I strongly believe that the vast majority of a goalkeepers training should be integrated, whether that be a cautious goalkeeper or a proactive goalkeeper because the relationship between defenders and goalkeeper is ultimately more important than the style of goalkeeper, and on average you are much more likely to see a goal from a mix-up between the lines than you are an individual error (it's just very rarely highlighted as such because it's more subtle whereas an individual error offers no hiding space). As an aside to what Ten Hag wants, we've seen already De Gea trying to sweep more for example this season, however thay will be with an element of caution because it is clearly not his instinct which is why we often see that split second delay before he does it because he's having to think to himself "I need to go here", which in itself can cause issues.

No, I think Dubravka has been signed as a number 2. I think we've signed a goalkeeper relatively similar in style to De Gea so that there is a relatively seamless transition between the goalkeepers when required which is sensible. The main difference is that Dubravka is much more of the average I would say in terms of dealing with crosses, he does come for most balls you'd expect a goalkeeper to deal with, whereas obviously De Gea does not. Otherwise they are largely similar. I think Dubravka is a goalkeeper Ten Hag wouldn't be afraid to put into the team if De Gea had another couple of weeks similar to Brighton/Brentford, on average he's actually outperformed De Gea in pure shot stopping terms over the past few years, but I think De Gea is very much the number one for this season. I could be wrong, Ten Hag has already surprised me more than once this season!

 

[Lyng]

No, I think Dubravka has been signed as a number 2. I think we've signed a goalkeeper relatively similar in style to De Gea so that there is a relatively seamless transition between the goalkeepers when required which is sensible. The main difference is that Dubravka is much more of the average I would say in terms of dealing with crosses, he does come for most balls you'd expect a goalkeeper to deal with, whereas obviously De Gea does not. Otherwise they are largely similar. I think Dubravka is a goalkeeper Ten Hag wouldn't be afraid to put into the team if De Gea had another couple of weeks similar to Brighton/Brentford, on average he's actually outperformed De Gea in pure shot stopping terms over the past few years, but I think De Gea is very much the number one for this season. I could be wrong, Ten Hag has already surprised me more than once this season!

Dubravkas long passing stats are much better than De Gea's actually.

 

[JB7]

Dubravkas long passing stats are much better than De Gea's actually.

I'm not saying they're not, I was speaking generally in terms of the type of goalkeeper he is. Do you expect to see him become number one this season?

 

[Lyng]

I'm not saying they're not, I was speaking generally in terms of the type of goalkeeper he is. Do you expect to see him become number one this season?

No I dont. Even though I think he would actually be a upgrade right now.

 

[JB7]

No I dont. Even though I think he would actually be a upgrade right now.

I'm not going to disagree with you. To clear I was responding to if I thought he would start the next PL fixtures between now and the World Cup, not if I would start him. I think him not playing against Sociedad was a mark in the sand that he's here purely as a number two unless we see further catastrophes from De Gea.

 

[Lyng]

I'm not going to disagree with you. To clear I was responding to if I thought he would start the next PL fixtures between now and the World Cup, not if I would start him. I think him not playing against Sociedad was a mark in the sand that he's here purely as a number two unless we see further catastrophes from De Gea.

Oh absolutely. I actually thought he would start against Sociedad, and was honestly dissapointed when he didnt.

 

[STaphouse]

Should have just signed Nick Pope.

He's limited with the ball at his feet but is better than De Gea at everything else.

 

[CarbonStoolBites]

Plenty of good keepers out there, I don’t think we should necessarily go for a young keeper.
Schmeichel joined in his late 20’s, VDS in his mid 30’s.
They’ve done alright.

Should have just signed Nick Pope.

He's limited with the ball at his feet but is better than De Gea at everything else.

So sign another goalkeeper that’s incompetent on the ball? Smart.

 

[STaphouse]

Plenty of good keepers out there, I don’t think we should necessarily go for a young keeper.
Schmeichel joined in his late 20’s, VDS in his mid 30’s.
They’ve done alright.


So sign another goalkeeper that’s incompetent on the ball? Smart.

He's not great with the ball but he's quite good at coming off his line etc. Would have been an upgrade on the current version of De Gea. Newcastle literally signed him for £10m rising to £13m with add ons. He'd retain his sell on value, being English etc.

He would have definitely been a short term signing but would have meant the club didn't need to rush into signing a GK. They could have properly scouted for 18 -24 months before deciding (they should be doing this already) rather than needing to decide now and increasing the chances of getting it wrong.

I'm not saying he should have been the clubs long term signing but he'd be a great stop gap. But then again, could also have just given Henderson a go but then I don't think he'll be good enough either.

 

[Redfrog]

We should double Dave’s salary before Real Madrid make that fax machine work.

 

[Remember the geese]

Dave saves. Dave stays.
He’s not going anywhere.

And neither are we as a team in that case.

 

[MUFC OK]

Luis Maximiano looked promising a couple of years ago, anyone know if that's still the case?

 

[Teja]

At the end of the day last season was embarrassing all round and there were only really two options for player of the season because there were only two players that offered any prolonged periods of reasonable form, one at either end of the pitch, both with their faults as well as their plus points. One won the supporters player of the year, one won the players player of the year. De Gea isn't a goalkeeper I would pick at any level of football because he's simply not my type of goalkeeper. He's not the type of goalkeeper I was and he's not the type of goalkeeper to be successful in any proactive football team due to his limitations nowadays, had he been more willing to work with Hoek earlier in his career that may be different, but we will never know, all we know is that he strongly resisted the integrated style of training (in my view, the correct style of training) and as soon as Hoek was moved on, recommended his old coach to the club who allowed him to return to a far higher percentage of individual work which in turn led to him reverting to being a goal-line goalkeeper which became more evident year on year. Under Mourinho that was acceptable, he was happy with a goal-line goalkeeper because his teams defended much deeper, as we tried to move forward under Solskjaer it became a problem. Solskjaer did turn to Henderson, which yielded considerable on-field improvements in the back end of 20/21 despite two or three high profile errors from Henderson. He caught Covid at the wrong time and De Gea started last season at career-high levels in terms of PSxG, despite conceding 21 goals in the 12 league games before Solskjaer was sacked, which is why he didn't drop him. Rangnick, the less said the better, he said the only position we didn't need to sign a player was in goal while residing over a period that De Gea was massively into the minus PSxG as well as being literally the worst goalkeeper in the league at dealing with crosses and sweeping, so god knows what he was thinking.

I would imagine that Ten Hag would have looked back at De Gea under LVG, while knowing he was in the final year of a contract that rendered him unsellable, and thought that he could work with him for a year. It wouldn't have been my position having watched him week in, week out, but I can understand why he would think that De Gea can play how he wants him to after seeing him those years ago while he'd been working with Hoek, and also considering he brought in 5 players who are likely to be important first teamers throughout the season, maybe he thought that a goalkeeper as well would be a bridge too far or unnecessary use of the initial budget. Obviously, I am no fan of De Gea but I expected him to be better than he has been with the ball at his feet than he has been this season and I've been watching him week in, week out for many years now, so I can completely understand why a manager coming in would have certain expectations despite any statistical analysis. However, it took two games for that opinion to clearly shift, we were very credibly linked with Yann Sommer and Kevin Trapp, the Trapp link being confirmed by the player, both of whom being goalkeepers more suited to Ten Hag's usual expectations for a goalkeeper. They didn't come in and in the subsequent games we stopped playing out from the goalkeeper in defensive areas, and the defenders dropped deeper to offer more protection to the goalkeeper. Are we pretending that is coincidental?

You may well be correct in that "awful" is somewhat strong, it probably is although given his one redeeming factor is that he's supposedly a world class shot-stopper despite only having half a season of world class shot-stopping in the past four and a half years, and as such I don't think he is realistically a choice for a team aiming to win trophies in the future, unless it is for a manager who is happy for his team to sit deep and defend as a tight unit with two aerially dominant centre halves in front of him. Also, just to clarify on the PSxG, I haven't cherry picked it at all, the statistics only go back as far as 2017/18, so I gave the information for the full five seasons available, both good and bad.

I just wanted to respond to this briefly. I'm not saying that only proactive goalkeepers can work or that others are dinosaurs. Goalkeepers who dominate their six-yard box (and beyond) have been around for a very long time, as have goalkeepers that come out at attackers running clean through on goal, these aren't modern innovations like some would have you believe. The major issue, as Thorstvedt has said, is that the defenders and goalkeeper have to be aligned, and we have not had that for a number of years, we have had defenders who want their goalkeeper to come and a goalkeeper who wants his defenders to deal with it. There is a middle ground between a highly proactive goalkeeper and a goalkeeper who stays rooted to his line for balls into the box, which is why the average for a goalkeeper to deal with crosses is a rate of around 7-9%, it's not hugely proactive but shows the goalkeeper will deal with certain types of balls into the box to take the pressure off where required, which is what De Gea very very rarely does. This is where Hoek's training was so important, a cautious goalkeeper can be successful if the defenders are aligned to that methodology of goalkeeping, but if the goalkeeper spends the majority of their time training away from the team, then building up that relationship is difficult. Equally that is becoming more and more difficult with teams playing higher lines and goalkeepers being expected to sweep more often than in years gone by, as we have seen the majority of successful teams over the past 15/20 years have had a goalkeeper closer to the proactive end of the scale than the cautious end. In terms of Jim Leighton's comment referenced, I don't disagree, although I highly doubt he is suggesting the goalkeeper stay completely on his line, rather to take up a position 3/4 yards from goal so that the angles are covered for diving comfortably in either direction and to both force the striker into making a decision and be set & ready for the shot on goal, it's actually something De Gea sometimes does very well and sometimes doesn't because of how predictable he is, because there are occasions where it is better to come all the way out and force the attacker into an early decision. Of course, the extreme opposite of this is Ederson, who often comes too far too soon, which I would say averages out to be no better in terms of one-on-one success; it is a situation where you don't want to be an extreme one way or the other like De Gea & Ederson are because it makes it easier for the striker knowing what the goalkeeper is likely to do.

Fantastic post, thank you for that. What do you think will happen to DDG end of the season? Will we let him go on a free somewhere? Seems unlikely and yet another missed opportunity to raise some money through transfers.

 

[Primex]

Who would you go for if have to pick one ?

Sanchez for me. 24 yrs, 1.97m, great all rounder, extremely confident and a bit of a fiery character.

Raya is 26 yrs, 1.83m, good passer and shot stopper but a bit shakey on set pieces.

Sanchez for me,he has that Bruno, Martinez vibes of willing to do feck all for the win and the team.

 

[demetre]

I don't quite get Sanchez shouts. Almost every time I watch Brighton he makes mistakes. He's still young, but right now I don't think he's anywhere near ready for a top club.

Meslier is another one I'm not a big fan of. Is he any better than Henderson for example?

 

[phelans shorts]

I don't quite get Sanchez shouts. Almost every time I watch Brighton he makes mistakes. He's still young, but right now I don't think he's anywhere near ready for a top club.

Meslier is another one I'm not a big fan of. Is he any better than Henderson for example?

Meslier is very good, particularly for his age bracket. His perception is massively hindered by playing behind Bielsa’s suicidal Leeds team.

Sanchez is very well rounded but not standout at anything that I’ve seen. Not sure he ever goes on to be top tier but a level below.

 

[sullydnl]

Meslier is very good, particularly for his age bracket. His perception is massively hindered by playing behind Bielsa’s suicidal Leeds team.

Sanchez is very well rounded but not standout at anything that I’ve seen. Not sure he ever goes on to be top tier but a level below.

Aye. Last season in the league for example he made the most saves, faced the most 1v1s, made the third most passes, made the fourth most defensive actions outside his area, etc. Being Leeds' keeper is a very active job in a lot of different ways.

 

[Carl]

Interested to know if anyone saying Bazunu isn't Irish?

Looked steady so far for Southampton but done nothing to suggest he'd be good enough to be our #1.

 

[Grande]

Cherry picking is where you choose a small selection of data from a larger dataset, because those pieces of data in isolation make it look like the result you want. What you're accusing me is the opposite of cherry picking, that I'm choosing too large a data set in order to ignore the smaller piece of data that is most relevant.

Unless you're now arguing that we should be looking at a much longer period than four years? Which is not what you said originally, but if you are, let me know and I'll respond to that.



This is now switching lanes from assessing his performance itself, to looking at the reasons for his performance. The point I made originally is that people often frame the debate over De Gea as good shot stopper vs good at other stuff, and how getting another keeper might mean us losing his excellent shot stopping ability. This is nothing to do with the reasons for his form.

I'm not too interested in why a player plays well or badly, since that is basically unknowable. It can be interesting to wonder, but using this kind of stuff to predict the future is basically guess work. But assessing whether De Gea is a good shot stopper right now is something much easier to do. And the data shows he hasn't been a consistently good shot stopper for a long time now. His form picked up briefly last season, but not for long, and it was very much the exception.

Indeed, now I look at the data properly, his good form was actually only for a 10 game period running from Villareal away til Brentford away. From the start of the season until Ole was sacked, he was average - his performance against PSxG was +0.04, completely ordinary and nowhere near elite level. After Brentford away til the end of the season it was -0.2, which is pretty poor.

It certainly is interesting that he had that good spell, but its such an exception to his performance in the rest of last season, and for several seasons before, and the current season, that I don't think you can really say that its in any way indicative of him being a good shot stopper.

thanks for a level headed response. Remember that it was you who accused me of cherry picking first, for focusing on the previous season, and me who responded that the choice of exactly the four seasons is equally not an accidental or indifferent choice.

cherry picking isn’t always bad, if its used to discover a phenomena worth looing closer at. It’s relevant that something happened to De Gea’s form around the summer of 2018, I think we all agree about that. Wether hebis a good shor stopper right now, of course, entails a bit more than reading stats, and seeing as he’s probably playing golf with his wifemor something right now, it is really partly a assesment of variable form, more stable capability, and prediction as to how good he’s likely to be against Sheriff and City and maybe this season on the whole even.

This is were reason come into the picture, because if the reason for his drop in 2018 was loss of confidence after a disastrous world cup and outside criticism, this might not be permanent and can change, and might point towards august-december 21 being his actual level. If it is loss of reflexes and agility due to age, it would point towards 2018-21 being more his actual level. If it is a case of training methods, it might indicate that we don’t know yet what his actual level is. If it is a case of him just being suited to being bonbarded behind a lowblock, maybe last years aug-december wasn’t an anomaly, but dependent on how the team choses to play. If it is about him being dedicated to prove his doubters wrong, or needing a bit of time to adjust to a way of playing, maybe his brilliance last autumn was more respresentative of his actual potential than his weak spells under Ole trying to change tactics, Rangnik coming in with a new style and a chaotic team, and his wobble against Brentford.

Saying how good a player ‘is’ is not always straight forward, and I would argue this is the case in extremis for almost our entire squad these days. Some claim Solskjær did miracles getting this squad to second place and beating City, PsG, Liverpool etc, some claim he was grossly underperforming given the capabilities of the squad. Some say everyone should be sold, and some say it’s just a matter of giving them some time under a brilliant coach. How god ‘is’ Rashford, Maguire, Martial, Maguire? We all know they wwre better in 2020 than 2021/22, but what is representable for what we can expect just now after the international break? I think it’s harder to answer this than it has been for a decade, and even so with De Gea. A dinosaur with gone reflexes just has no way og delivering three months of +11 S/xG in the PL in 2021, in my opinion, fluctuating accidents doesn’t work that extremely, which is why I am fairly certain this period is relevant to how good De Gea ‘is’ now, more so than the collective chaos period under Rangniknor a few ‘bedding in games’ under Ten Hag. De Gea for me has played five ok to good games in a row after that, conceding nothing but a penalty and two goals whom no keeper would save in impressive wins against Liverpool and Arsenal. Is this his actual level? And how different does Ten Hag needus to play, when he gets four straight league wins playing this way? I’m unsure, honestly.

I was excited when Henderson got game time back when, because I had lsot faith in De Gea turning it around. I was impressed with De Gea, not just his stats, last season, particularly how he bounced back after the penalty shoot out misery against Villarreal. I don’t think he’ll be our no 1 starting next season - but I won’t be shocked if he is, and I don’t assume it has to be because of gross incompetence on Ten Hag’s part if it happens.

 

[BerryBerryShrew]

Interested to know if anyone saying Bazunu isn't Irish?

Looked steady so far for Southampton but done nothing to suggest he'd be good enough to be our #1.

It's either take word of Irish fans like myself (he's brilliant) or Portsmouth fans (he was voted Player of the Year and Player's Player of the Year for his loan spell last year so I'd imagine they'd be similarly effusive). He hasn't really played much senior football aside from that so that's about all the reviews you can get until he gets a few more Southampton games under his belt.

 

[JB7]

Fantastic post, thank you for that. What do you think will happen to DDG end of the season? Will we let him go on a free somewhere? Seems unlikely and yet another missed opportunity to raise some money through transfers.

It's nigh on impossible to say. Letting players go for free hasn't been a business choice we've taken very often over the past few years where the club feels there is a value still attached to the player. However it more than fair to say that De Gea's salary renders his transfer value nil. So the club are left with three options, to renegotiate his wage to a level where he would gain a potential re-sell value, to exercise the option in his contract which will see him retained on a salary way beyond his true value or to let him go on a free transfer.

I wouldn't be surprised if he is retained in one way or another, though I would be surprised if he is our number one next season. To me, that isn't optimum because I don't see Ten Hag choosing to replace him with a similar type of goalkeeper and my view is that it makes sense from a continuity and relationship point of view for the goalkeepers throughout the squad to be stylistically similar. That said, it is pertinent to note that we could potentially see a lot of upheaval next summer in the goalkeeping department with De Gea, Heaton & Bishop out of contract and Henderson having possibly burned bridges at the club.

 

[Grande]

Thank you, I'm glad it was of interest and not too boring of a post! I didn't realise how long it was until I re-read it this morning

I'll attempt to answer your questions, you'll appreciate it will largely be opinion based but I'll do my best.

I don't necessarily think De Gea wanting to leave was down to the coaching methods, I would certainly hope not anyway, it was clear that he didn't get on with LVG, I think that much is public knowledge which obviously didn't help matters but at the time he had been in Manchester only 4/5 years I think and his girlfriend was still living in Madrid. So I think him wanting to leave was more about returning to Madrid than because he didn't enjoy the work under LVG/Hoek, I'd be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt in that instance, I think not enjoying training methods would be an poor reason to want to leave, particularly where it was proving to be successful on the field.

In terms of the views of Hartis & Alvarez, it's very hard to say. Alvarez obviously left for non-footballing reasons but it is interesting to note he's not been back in football since leaving United nearly 3 years ago despite at the time claiming he wanted to be back soon. Given the length of time he worked with De Gea I would imagine he is proud of the goalkeeper he became, as a young player he was very clearly a goal-line goalkeeper and he's very much that now, though he has regressed more and more onto his line year on year since Alvarez left the club, so I could be wrong in that instance. That said, I'd expect that when he goes through periods like early season last season where he is stopping shots at a considerably above average rate he would be happy - obviously I'd disagree with that - but I can't imagine Alvarez or Hartis would have been overly unhappy during late 2021. I'd like to think they've been critical of him this calendar year but based on the interviews De Gea was giving, certainly at the back end of last season, I have my doubts. I'm surprised Hartis is still with the club in truth, he'd been at clubs with Solskjaer previously and I did some light research on him when he joined and it appeared that the majority of goalkeepers he had worked with previously had been goal-line type goalkeepers, I thought Ten Hag might bring a goalkeeping coach with him.

I would be astonished in Ten Hag doesn't want a high majority of integrated training. In the past he has favoured playing out from the back and including the goalkeeper in the passage of play, as such it is clearly vital for the goalkeeper to be included within team training. It is also obviously important for the defensive structure, as the goalkeeper is a part of that whether he wants to be or not. I strongly believe that the vast majority of a goalkeepers training should be integrated, whether that be a cautious goalkeeper or a proactive goalkeeper because the relationship between defenders and goalkeeper is ultimately more important than the style of goalkeeper, and on average you are much more likely to see a goal from a mix-up between the lines than you are an individual error (it's just very rarely highlighted as such because it's more subtle whereas an individual error offers no hiding space). As an aside to what Ten Hag wants, we've seen already De Gea trying to sweep more for example this season, however thay will be with an element of caution because it is clearly not his instinct which is why we often see that split second delay before he does it because he's having to think to himself "I need to go here", which in itself can cause issues.

No, I think Dubravka has been signed as a number 2. I think we've signed a goalkeeper relatively similar in style to De Gea so that there is a relatively seamless transition between the goalkeepers when required which is sensible. The main difference is that Dubravka is much more of the average I would say in terms of dealing with crosses, he does come for most balls you'd expect a goalkeeper to deal with, whereas obviously De Gea does not. Otherwise they are largely similar. I think Dubravka is a goalkeeper Ten Hag wouldn't be afraid to put into the team if De Gea had another couple of weeks similar to Brighton/Brentford, on average he's actually outperformed De Gea in pure shot stopping terms over the past few years, but I think De Gea is very much the number one for this season. I could be wrong, Ten Hag has already surprised me more than once this season!

oh, I don’t mind the TL;DR responses, I’m a dinosaur that way. To be honest I think about quitting the Café more and more often, and it is posts like you first I responded to that makes me want to quit, and its posts like your latter ones that makes me change my mind. Sorry that you got my grumpy old man reaction at first.

When I was coaching, I was interested in Dutch approaches like Wim Coerver, and so am curious about Hoek and integrated training. It was also a discussion we had as to how much we wanted specialized coaching for keepers at ages 14 and 15. I was more alignied with yours and Hoeks tastes there, compared to the others, I believe. What is your impression of, say, big five leagues - how many weights it the integrated/Hoek way and how many the separated/Alvarez way?

 

[JB7]

oh, I don’t mind the TL;DR responses, I’m a dinosaur that way. To be honest I think about quitting the Café more and more often, and it is posts like you first I responded to that makes me want to quit, and its posts like your latter ones that makes me change my mind. Sorry that you got my grumpy old man reaction at first.

When I was coaching, I was interested in Dutch approaches like Wim Coerver, and so am curious about Hoek and integrated training. It was also a discussion we had as to how much we wanted specialized coaching for keepers at ages 14 and 15. I was more alignied with yours and Hoeks tastes there, compared to the others, I believe. What is your impression of, say, big five leagues - how many weights it the integrated/Hoek way and how many the separated/Alvarez way?

The Coerver methodology is interesting, I think while it has its place in some instances, overall, it is a clearly flawed approach in my view but that's for another discussion.

Now I just want to be clear, any professional football club will have both variants of goalkeeper training, both integrated and individual, as part of their plan throughout the week. So I'm not saying Hoek did everything integrated with the group and Alvarez kept the goalkeepers alone all week, I know you understand that, but just wanted to clear that up in case of being quoted out of context. I think the weighting discussed by Hoek was between 80 to 90% integrated, 10 to 20% individual - which he said was completely different to what the goalkeepers had been used to.

I would be very surprised if across Europe goalkeepers are spending anything more than 20-25% of their time training individually, at a lot of clubs it will be considerably less. We are seeing the importance placed on clubs wanting a third or fourth choice goalkeeper nowadays, some effectively signed exclusively for training purposes to take part in the team defensive or offensive drills. That's not to say there won't be outliers, this is not an exact science by any stretch as some coaches will prescribe to different methods of course and there will be other instances where clubs are dealing with young, inexperienced goalkeepers and as such they need more individual attention for the coaching staff. But as a general rule I'd be expecting 25% maximum on average, particularly in the big 5 leagues.

 

[Foxbatt]

He has never played under a settled defense for a long time. His prime responsibility is to stop goals. Whether by staying on the line or coming out.

 

[RkkMan]

He has never played under a settled defense for a long time. His prime responsibility is to stop goals. Whether by staying on the line or coming out.

So going by your logic AWB>Trent because a defender's primary job is to defend before being able to attack
Or am I doing it right?

 

[largelyworried]

A dinosaur with gone reflexes just has no way og delivering three months of +11 S/xG in the PL in 2021, in my opinion, fluctuating accidents doesn’t work that extremely, which is why I am fairly certain this period is relevant to how good De Gea ‘is’ now, more so than the collective chaos period under Rangniknor a few ‘bedding in games’ under Ten Hag.

Can you clarify where you got that stat from? I have his stats right here and I can't find anything even close to that.

 

[Grande]

Can you clarify where you got that stat from? I have his stats right here and I can't find anything even close to that.

I believe @JB7 posted it earlier in this thread if memory serves, as part of a point of criticism in fact.

 

[redIndianDevil]

Should have just signed Nick Pope.

He's limited with the ball at his feet but is better than De Gea at everything else.

No thank you. De Gea is a far better keeper.

 

[dannyrhinos89]

For what its worth I live in leeds and know alot of season ticket holders and most of them think meslier is hugely overrated. His name keeps getting brought up he's Good but nothing special.

 

[Oranges038]

No thank you. De Gea is a far better keeper.

You do know that Nick Pope conceded less goals for a relegated side than DDG did last season.

 

[Rocksy]

For what its worth I live in leeds and know alot of season ticket holders and most of them think meslier is hugely overrated. His name keeps getting brought up he's Good but nothing special.

I used to live in Leeds and go to games with season ticket holders: I remember they always thought all of their players were shite/overrated!

 

[largelyworried]

I believe @JB7 posted it earlier in this thread if memory serves, as part of a point of criticism in fact.

So what he said was

21/22: +6.7 (worth noting he was +11 or so at the end of December so his drop off in 2022 was rather astonishing, roughly -4 vs an average goalkeeper).

JB7 never said 3 months that I can see.

His first 12 games were slightly above average. Then he did really well for 9 games, peaking with an outstanding game against Brentford . Then his form collapsed entirely and he only managed a positive score in 3 of his final 17 games, totalling about -4.

So he did have a good spell last season, but it was only for 9 games, not 3 months.

 

[dannyrhinos89]

I used to live in Leeds and go to games with season ticket holders: I remember they always thought all of their players were shite/overrated!

it’s either love/hate with them now, never seen a fanbase be so split on players.