Yehvann Diouf is a young GK that seems to stand out, in addition to Bart Verbruggen. If we're keeping De Gea, then we can go for one of the two, that will come at a cheap enough price. We can then bed them in and play in the cups with the idea of replacing De Gea outright by beginning of the following season. This is probably the way to go as I don't think our budget for will allow us to pay what it will cost to buy Costa.
A Look at Goalkeeper Options and Replacing De Gea
- Thread starter sifi36
- Start date
Courtois completed 12 out of 12 short and medium passes (the exact same as Ederson) and 5 out of 19 long balls (Ederson 6 out of 9, despite having way less space to play into) in the entire match. They didn't give him the ball. If they had, and he was capable it would've reduced the efficacy of the City press as they would've had an extra man.
Your last statement is disagreeing with a point I'd never made. I thought I'd addressed this but I'll say it again and clearer: a goalkeeper, right back and central midfielder comfortable under pressure are required to transform our playing style to give us the control we need against high pressing sides.
De Gea has no "Bad Touches" in the last three seasons as defined here so that pumps his score up. Touching the ball outside the area speaks to a keeper who is more involved in build-up and takes more risky situations on, thus is more likely to turn the ball over. Having them both here balances out the risk/reward of having a goalkeeper who contributes in possession.
Yeah that's what I'm saying - De Gea's first touch/control is very good. I think a stat like "on ball comfort" would give the impression that it isn't.
He is comfortable on the ball - so long as it's in his own box!
Think about it this way, a player who passes sideways all the time but never gives the ball away is not a good passer. De Gea rarely puts himself in positions of involvement and as such he shouldn’t be rewarded too much for not having bad touches.
He also hoofs it long as soon as any pressure is applied in his own box so we can’t say he’s that comfortable on the ball.
Or as long as an opponent isn't within 10 yards of him.
Nah, that comparison would imply that De Gea only has to deal with simple passes played back to him - which isn't the case. He gets all sorts of passes played/fired back to him and he's usually able to control them all.
He doesn't get involved in play outside the box because he isn't good at passing, similarly he hoofs it long because, again, he isn't good at passing, not because he isn't comfortable controlling the ball/having it at his feet. It's extensions of the same skill set sure, but it is different.
Put it this way, if De Gea could pass remotely well, it would remedy a lot of things, because his control/touch doesn't let him down often.
I see where you’re coming from now. On-ball comfort as a name is misleading in that case. Calling it simply “possession” or “build-up involvement” would be a better description.
Diouf - his crossing calms is really very high. Good age as well.I've been analysing the goalkeeper data available through FBRef as I think goalkeeping is the easiest of all positions to analyse statistically.
I've taken some of the provided ones and come up with a few transformations to create a list of metrics to score goalkeepers from the top five leagues on their league performances over this season and the previous two to create reasonable size samples.
Metric Definition Limitations Stopped Crosses % Crosses Stopped divided by Crosses Faced Doesn't take into account how "stoppable" a cross is, or failed cross claims Distance Swept /90 Number of sweeping actions multiplied by average sweeping distance, divided by 90s played doesn’t take into account failed sweeps which usually result in high scores quality chances Shot Stopping Post-shot xG faced minus goals against, divided by post-shot xG faced FBRef post-shot xG model doesn't take into account shot location or power Bad Touches /90 Miscontrols plus dispossessions per 90 played Bad Touch Ratio Miscontrols plus dispossessions divided by total touches Outside Area Touches Touches Outside penalty area divided by total touches Outside Area Touches /90 Touches Outside penalty area per 90 played Short and Medium Passes /90 Somewhat team style dependent Short and Medium Share A ratio of short and medium passes relative to total passes Somewhat team style dependent Short Accuracy Completion percentage of short passes Medium Accuracy Completion percentage of medium passes Long Accuracy Completion percentage of long passes Passing Tendancies An average of the percentile rank of "Short and Medium Passes /90" and "Short and Medium Share" Passing Accuracy An average of the percentile rank of "Short Accuracy", "Medium Accuracy" and "Long Accuracy" On Ball Comfort An average of the percentile rank of "Bad Touches /90", "Bad Touch Ratio", "Outside Area Touches" and "Outside Area Touches /90" Crosses Percentile rank of "Stopped Crosses %" Sweeping Percentile rank of "Distance Swept /90" Shot Stopping Percentile rank of "Shot Stopping" OVERALL SCORE UNWEIGHTED An Average of each of the six above OVERALL SCORE WEIGHTED As above but each category is weighted by the amount specified
That then gives us the below table for the top 50 overall (Costa is highlighted as he doesn't play in a top five league and thus his data may or may not be comparable):
Lots of names you would expect, but also quite a few that I hadn't heard of: Casteels (contract expires 2024 and valued at 8m Euros on TransferMarkt), Samba (10m Euros) and Diouf (5m Euros) look very well balanced, with none of the six metrics being below average. Diogo Costa, Pau Lopez and to a lesser extent David Raya also look like good options for United.
David De Gea - 78th out of 90 goalkeepers that have played at least 50 games' worth of minutes:
If you're more of a traditionalist and value shot-stopping and command of area uber-alles, quadrupling the weight of those two metrics gives the following top 50
For a visual comparison of some we've been linked to and others we should be considering:
Conclusions
- David De Gea is either average or poor at everything a goalkeeper is required to do
- Upgrading on him can be done in an inexpensive manner
- Obviously scouting/eye-test and personality assessment would also be required before signing any of the above
You can download the Excel file from the link below and add your own weightings for each category in the first sheet ("Scoreboard"), I'd recommend filtering "90s" to at least 30 if not 50 to ensure the goalkeepers being looked at have reasonable sample sizes. The second ("Comparison Charts") allows you to create your own radar comparison chart for up to five of the goalkeepers included in the analysis.
Link to File
Madrid got dominated because their approach to football in the league caught up with them in the cup competition. Ancelotti has regularly submitted to Barcelona's in possession dominance in the league, where he's only won one league title in the years he's coached at Madrid. And currently he's lost the title by a big margin to a Barcelona team led by Xavi, even with their financial problems. For me the best coaches are those who can show it consistently over the course of a season in the league. And winning cups is fantastic but the barometer is always the league format for me. Ancelotti again tried to play transitional football but this time Guardiola was prepared and his proactive approach to the game meant his team dominated both in possession and out of possession using the Michels/Cruyff blueprint.
The team that has been developed by placing emphasis on the build up phase and having a keeper who is their to initiate attacks won the game comfortably. Because if the idea is to dominate the ball and hence play proactively, you will win more than you lose against a coaching mindset that looks to react against you and not take you on. Guardiola is accustomed to having his own way at Barcelona, Bayern and now at City with Abu Dhabi backing. And he will carry on winning until a ownership arrives that will be just as ambitious as Abu Dhabi, with a head coach who is proactive in his school of thought. And then disruption will take place in City's defensive third via high pressure whilst carrying a big threat in possession. The only coach who has beaten Guardiola over the course of a season by implementing a proactive in/out of possession plan is Jurgen Klopp. But FSG can't compete with Abu Dhabi in the long run imo.
Start with removing the goalkeeper and attempt to exert on the ball dominance. Otherwise embrace the Mourinho blueprint where he wrote in his book about telling his players at Inter, to not pass the ball around in the defensive third against Barcelona due to the fear of losing it and the consequences. It's why Mourinho is at Roma and Guardiola is still at the top of the game due to his proactive school of thought, even though Mourinho won the battle in that particular game but lost the war.
The best analogy that comes to mind is from the movie Enter the Dragon. Someone attempts to intimidate Bruce Lee by breaking a plank of wood with their bare hands, and Bruce Lee responds by saying 'boards don't hit back'.
The team that has been developed by placing emphasis on the build up phase and having a keeper who is their to initiate attacks won the game comfortably. Because if the idea is to dominate the ball and hence play proactively, you will win more than you lose against a coaching mindset that looks to react against you and not take you on. Guardiola is accustomed to having his own way at Barcelona, Bayern and now at City with Abu Dhabi backing. And he will carry on winning until a ownership arrives that will be just as ambitious as Abu Dhabi, with a head coach who is proactive in his school of thought. And then disruption will take place in City's defensive third via high pressure whilst carrying a big threat in possession. The only coach who has beaten Guardiola over the course of a season by implementing a proactive in/out of possession plan is Jurgen Klopp. But FSG can't compete with Abu Dhabi in the long run imo.
Start with removing the goalkeeper and attempt to exert on the ball dominance. Otherwise embrace the Mourinho blueprint where he wrote in his book about telling his players at Inter, to not pass the ball around in the defensive third against Barcelona due to the fear of losing it and the consequences. It's why Mourinho is at Roma and Guardiola is still at the top of the game due to his proactive school of thought, even though Mourinho won the battle in that particular game but lost the war.
The best analogy that comes to mind is from the movie Enter the Dragon. Someone attempts to intimidate Bruce Lee by breaking a plank of wood with their bare hands, and Bruce Lee responds by saying 'boards don't hit back'.
Nice post and analysis. What's happened to Sanchez at Brighton? How come he's not playing anymore, would that make him an affordable option?
Great stuff. Very illuminating.
As an adjunct I’d say that DDG’s very deep starting position and reluctance to play the sweeping role means that our centre backs have to sit deep too. So it affects the whole team negatively .
Obvs he knows a lot more than we do, but I was really surprised, and a bit disappointed, to hear ETH has such a high opinion of him. It just seems so clear that he is a weak link, particularly for the way we want to play.
As an adjunct I’d say that DDG’s very deep starting position and reluctance to play the sweeping role means that our centre backs have to sit deep too. So it affects the whole team negatively .
Obvs he knows a lot more than we do, but I was really surprised, and a bit disappointed, to hear ETH has such a high opinion of him. It just seems so clear that he is a weak link, particularly for the way we want to play.
What a great OP. The worry for me is that this is a massive blind spot for EtH with rumours of a new contract etc. The better decision would be to let him just go. I could even make do with Henderson for a year if it meant getting D Costa a year later.
Yes he made mistakes but our defence is complete Swiss cheese this season so hard to blame him too much. He also made some incredible saves. As Ajax supporter I'm a little surprised no Andre Onana in the list. He pulled a fast one on us although it remains a mystery how much Ajax contributed to that but he was an incredible keeper for us. after a shaky start at Inter he is now their undisputed number one so really surprised not seeing him on the list.
Here are Brighton's top-line metrics separated by manager and goalkeeper. One must be wary of taking too much from this, as it doesn't take into account fixture difficulty.
| Manager | Keeper | Total Games | Goals For / game | Goals Against/ game | Goal Difference / game | xG /game | xGA /game | xGD /game | Average Possession |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Potter | Sanchez | 6 | 1.83 | 0.83 | 1 | 1.78 | 1.05 | 0.73 | 50 |
| De Zerbi | Sanchez | 17 | 1.76 | 1.47 | 0.29 | 1.65 | 1.21 | 0.44 | 61.82 |
| De Zerbi | Steele | 11 | 2.27 | 1.36 | 0.91 | 2.54 | 1.29 | 1.25 | 64.64 |
The expected goal difference /game is getting on for the levels City reach (1.33) under De Zerbi with Steele in goal. It’s also miles ahead of anyone else in the league, including Arsenal.
Last edited:
I think you are overestimating what Ederson offers to City and underestimating the collective pressing, passing and movement of City's outfield players. Also the exact opposite for Madrid players, putting too much limelight on Courtois' lack of long ball accuracy but not enough limelight on Madrid's outfield players' lack of movement, comfort on the ball when pressed. Switch Courtois and Ederson yesterday and the result would have remained exactly the same.
To be fair(er), For €8m we’re only really looking at him being better than Hendersen as we could sell him for more than that. You can take a punt at that price and see him as a cost-free back up keeper that may bloom into a first choice player under Ten Hag.
How many times do I have to use variations of the word “partly”? Of course City’s press is relentless and incredibly well drilled. Of course more press resistant outfield players for Madrid would have made a difference.
This is a thread about goalkeepers and the impact they have both in and out of possession. If you don’t think Ederson playing for Madrid would’ve occasionally scared the City press with an accurate long ball over the top, or have been able to position himself to receive and then play a ball through the City press, then that’s fair enough as it’s hypothetical. I disagree.
Would it have changed the outcome? Probably not, unless the other issue of press resistant outfield players was also fixed. Then it would’ve been a very different game.
Height is becoming increasingly irrelevant for a goalkeeper for a side that controls the ball. Not because it’s never relevant, but because controlling the ball means less defending-third set pieces conceded means less of a need for a huge commanding keeper that controls those scenarios.
Besides that, if a 6ft 1in keeper has a decent vertical leap and better anticipation, he’s making up well over 2 inches on a keeper that’s 6’3” and doesn’t.
What exactly would have scared the City players? Absolute ballers like Modric and Kroos couldn't pick passes through but you seem to think a goalkeeper would have changed the dynamic? How many accurate long passes did Modric, Kroos, Camavinga make? I'm pretty sure they are all far and above better than Ederson when it comes to passing. The entire madrid team was in their own box and couldn't find passes.
I understand that this is a goalkeeper thread and more often than not these threads become De Gea bashing threads. The point I'm trying to make is there are plenty of things to fix in our team before looking at the GK position. Changing the keeper is not going to make such an impact in our general play.
A goalkeeper is in the unique position to receive the ball facing away from their own goal with little chance of pressure from behind and no direct marker in any sensible pressing system.
No outfielder is in that position very often, even absolute ballers like Kroos and Modric.
A system or a goalkeeper that doesn't exploit this is easy to press, you just let the goalkeeper have the ball and because he does nothing with it, you press the defenders and midfielders with an extra man instead.
Look at the difference for Brighton between Sanchez and Steele to show how much difference a goalkeeper who is comfortable in build-up can make. They want you to press because they know that they can play through or over a press because of the man advantage a ball-playing keeper provides. You can have the best players in the world but you will get beaten easily if you're effectively playing with a man down.
EDIT:
City press in a 3142, with Stones pushing into midfield, allowing Rodri to join the bank of 4 press, which goes for the opposition full-backs and midfield. Haaland and de Bruyne cover the centre-backs. If Stones is in midfield, its 1v1 at the back, and a good long-ball into the space behind the high line could play someone in. If Stones drops back to create a man advantage at the back, then one of the opposing midfielders is free, providing the goalkeeper (who is the other spare man) can pick out either option.
Last edited:
sifi36: Your posts detail exactly why City are so successful, and at the same time, why we struggle, and will continue to next season.
No matter how much you break it down and present it to the de Gea brigade, they will not see how detrimental the lack of a ball playing sweeper keeper is to our overall play, both defensively and offensively.
They will continue to think that we can paper over the cracks by relying on his shot stopping (which makes no sense, as he is not even a great shot stopper), and sign a striker who will win us the league.
They just don't get it, and don't understand how the principles of Total Football and possession+pressing has left United in the dust for the last 10 years.
No matter how much you break it down and present it to the de Gea brigade, they will not see how detrimental the lack of a ball playing sweeper keeper is to our overall play, both defensively and offensively.
They will continue to think that we can paper over the cracks by relying on his shot stopping (which makes no sense, as he is not even a great shot stopper), and sign a striker who will win us the league.
They just don't get it, and don't understand how the principles of Total Football and possession+pressing has left United in the dust for the last 10 years.
Last edited:
Great post and nicely visualizes for the doubters how poor De Gea actually is these days. I think many here struggle with realizing it when he's not making obvious howlers because if you aren't paying attention you'll only notice keepers when they make saves or huge errors, and De Gea can still make some nice reflex saves. But go and watch Liverpool and see how much Allisson aids their backline with his sweeping and aggressive cross claiming (not even counting his passing) and it's so clear how much of a disadvantage we play at with DDG in goal.
The Golden glove thing is hilarious and should be given to our backline over De Gea
The Golden glove thing is hilarious and should be given to our backline over De Gea
Also to add on: THIS is a huge reason why people see that in matches against bigger/better sides we don't "control" games like you might see other teams do. When you have a keeper that forces your defense to play a bit deeper, and he's terrified of playing out of the back, it makes it miles easier for opposition to press relentlessly high without fear of being split open as long as they mark the few runners we might send. These top GK's can play as an extra man to ensure that there is always a free man in possession when being pressed.
Exactly!
I reckon your scouting team needs to bring massimo taibi back out of retirement for one last hurrah. He’d revolutionise your back line.
Fully agreed mate! On the ETH comments though, I wouldn't look to deeply into them. ETH only criticizes his players when they perform, but become complacent or they can up another level. Ex: Antony last year at Ajax
I think ETH's comments on DDG are more to do with his personality, not his ability. From a personality perspective Dave is a stand out lad and a model professional. His is not disruptive, he is drama free and he is part of the veteran guard in our dressing room, which I imagine ETH loves since he is setting an example for the younger(more troublesome lads). I also imagine that the fact that he is the only player in the current squad who has a PL winners medal with us most make him like an old grandpa who tells stories from the trenches.
Now DDG as a player is a completely different story. There is nothing about DDG that ETH loves in a keeper. At Ajax, he benched a more experienced Stekelenburg in favor of Onana. Once Onana got suspended for doping, instead of reinstating Stekelnburg, he went out and bought a 39 year old Remko Pasaveer who was a very average shot stopper. The reason he did all of this is that in his view, the GK is the foundation of his playing system and he wants a GK that is good in possesion, is an excellent passer and is proactive and pushes up his defensive line. Something I imagine he is going to address in the upcoming transfer window.
It was actually Peter Bosz that decided to make Onana his number one keeper when nobody expected that in 2016/2017.
Please forward this thread to Rich Arnold and EtH
Great post, but I’m sorry about having to reply on my iPhone as I’m traveling today, which means a briefer reply than you deserve to get from me.
Just an opinion, but it’s my opinion that we do more than enough against most opponents to create good chances on goal, but that our finishing overall is absurdly poor. I’m sorry, but we can’t blame De Gea when Martial misses from point blank range or when Weghorst shuts his pants when the ball is at his feet. Im not a hater of Sancho or Antony, but no one can deny that neither have been poor to middling at best. Rashford is our only reliable goal scorer this season, but we’ve seen what happens when he goes cold.
Point is, our lack of goal scoring has almost nothing to do with De Gea’s deficiencies. That said, his howler against West Ham cannot be overlooked…but there is no keeper in any league on the planet who hasn’t given up at least 2 or 3 goals this season that should have been saved.
Maybe the metric in how it is worked out is a bit vague and on a technicality, it is 'unfair'. However, overall De Gea is extremely average and veering on bad if we're judging 'comfort on the ball' based your standard of first touch/having it at his feet.
As others have already said, he looks decent enough only when there are set conditions like he's in acres of space, there's an obvious pass to teammate with no zonal pressure and there isn't an opposition player pressing within 10-15 yards. That's not comfort at all.
The O.P. has not once blamed de Gea for sitters missed by our strikers.
Your claim that 'all keepers will give up at least 2 or 3 goals a season that should have been saved' is a problematic statement to make because:
1) this discussion is much more broad than 'shot-stopping' and is about the strengths and weaknesses of de Gea vs other keepers, including sweeping, distribution, box command, etc
2) We can actually look at shot-stopping by using one of the metrics highlighted by the O.P which is PSxG-GA, which takes into account the quality of shots faced by a keeper, and subtracts away the goals actually conceded by the keeper.
It is used in a per 90 fashion, on aggregate. A net positive score indicates a keeper, on average, saves more goals than he should have,
and a net negative score indicates a keeper lets in more goals than he should have, on average, where 'should have' is defined to be what you would expect of an average keeper.
3) Even if a fair chunk of keepers give up a couple of goals that they 'should have' saved, great keepers will also make saves that they 'shouldnt' have saved, and this metric shows you over the course of a large amount of games, whether your keeper is a net positive w/r/t to saving goals or not.
4) de Gea is statistically average at shot-stopping these days: he ranks in the 50th percentile for PSxG-GA in the EPL this season, and has a raw-score of -0.05 per 90, which if you take that over course of matches we've played in the season equates to 4.25 goals (-0.05*35) he should have saved, on aggregate.
In contrast, Alison ranks in the EPL at +0.29 (98th percentile!) for PSxG-GA this season, which over the course of the 36 matches he's played equates to a net 10.44 goals he's saved that the average keeper shouldn't have.
You can also take this same metric even further and apply it to de Gea's famed 17/18 season - in that season he ranked in the 98th percentile for PSxG-GA, with a score of +0.34 per 90,
which equates to net 12.92 goals he saved that season that an average keeper wouldn't have saved.
So what we see here is that this stat backs up the 'eye test' - de Gea was probably the best in the world at shot-stopping in 17/18 but now he is average.
Last edited:
Average as measured against the 20 top keepers on the planet? I’ll grant you that.
But let’s not lose sight of the forest when we evaluate the trees. The point still stands that our goals conceded stacks up extremely well and that our goals scored stacks up extremely poorly. Each of us would want to upgrade every position on the squad if we could, with the likely exceptions of Martinez and Shaw. There’s even been flogging of Casemiro here, so an upgrade there might not be out of order. But we’re just not going to bring 7 or 8 new players, let alone 20 we could arguable upgrade on.
If we spend the 70m it would likely take to bring in Costa so that we can get rid of De Gea, we significantly impair our ability to address our goals scored performance while at the same doing virtually nothing to improve our goals conceded performance, since that performance is already very good, as measured against the top clubs in the prem.
United missed a great trick when they could've signed Onana on a free from Ajax. The guy is absolutely immense. I would be looking to be buying him from Inter. Great shotstopper, good in the air, good with the ball on his feet and strong personality.
Great post, using the PSxG/90 is a great way to compare two goalkeepers with the same number of minutes played, though it does favour goalkeepers who face more and/or higher quality shots (which in this case would be Alisson), as they have more opportunities to over or underperform.
The transformation I’ve used is goals conceded above or below PSxG divided by PSxG faced, as it normalises for the quantity and quality of shots faced, so as to not penalise goalkeepers who face fewer shots. As an example, Pope and Fabianski have the same PSxG/90, yet Fabianski has acheived this by facing 50% more xG. In this scenario, my metric would favour the goalkeeper who overperforms more with fewer opportunities.
I don’t doubt our finishing has been poor. That said, we have dropped very few points due to poor finishing:
Newcastle (h) 2
Chelsea (a) 2
Palace (a) 2
Leeds(h) 2
In our remaining draws and losses in the league this season, which have cost us 31 points, we lost because we lacked control thus not creating enough and giving away too many chances. That lack of control is as a result of a goalkeeper hoofing it long 4 times as often as our peers (thus handing over possession and therefore control) and a defence and midfield who lack the power and press resistance to be competitive in our toughest games - against the upper half of the table away.
City had no real striker last season and will score a similar number of points as this season with the most prolific striker in the league’s history.
Finally, the point of the OP is not to show that Costa would be good signing, it’s to show that there are a dozen cheaper options that would be a vast upgrade on De Gea. Saying we need to spend €70 million is a red herring.
Last edited:
1. I believe you are not really considering how another keeper would help us improve offensively, by being one of the key factors in retaining and recycling possession, which would then lead to us creating even more chances than now. It seems you don't appreciate the correlation between a keeper and how a team will drastically improve offensively by being able to maintain a high line, sweeping and collecting crosses, and opting to pass through the lines instead of hoofing it long upwards of 30 times in a game.
2. It also seems you underestimate how many less chances we would concede with a proactive keeper who can claim crosses and sweep.
3. While D. Costa would be the prime option, we don't need to spend anywhere near that amount to upgrade on de Gea. There are literally hundreds of goalkeepers across Europe who would improve us both defensively and offensively, and many of them are valued at 10-20 million, which is peanuts, even on our budget.
We do create chances, but many of them are chances on the break, which often means finishes will be taken while running at full speed, and without many passing options inside or around the box. These chances often have much lower xG than those typical chances created by teams like City, where they basically end up passing the ball into the back of the net, with 6-7 players standing in or around the box. We rarely create those types of chances, because we have no control in possession when de Gea constantly hoofs the ball instead of playing it through the lines. He does this around 20-30 times every game. That's an enormous amount of wasted possession, not to mention the wasted potential of chances created. Instead, we end up chasing the ball for huge chunks of every game, and when we finally get it, it's more often than not erratic attempts of counter attacking. We do create some chances from this, and we should score more... But many of those chances actually have a pretty low xG. It's way too erratic and speed-dependent. There's little control of tempo in possession. Whenever Bruno gets the ball, he just hoofs it at Rashford or Antony, who then are pretty much on their own. We don't have the time to even get 4-5 players in the box, to maximize our chances. De Gea - more than any of our outfield players - facilitates us having to play this negative counter attacking style.
We also concede far too many chances, due to our entire team having to maintain low lines, because de Gea is glued to his goal. Not to mention how many chances we concede by de Gea booting it long 20-30 times, or by de Gea not claiming a cross so we can either stop a shot or chance, or at the very least, regain possession earlier.
Last edited:
Yes, normalising by accumulated PsxG does make sense to adjust for goal opportunities; I must have glossed over that in your O.P.
The example I've used is merely illustrative of the underperformance of de Gea since his peak; interestingly enough, in the 17/18 season, he had roughly the same amount of shots on target faced (3.71 per 90 then, 3.78 per 90 now), and his PSxG/SoT were 0.28 across both seasons.
Alisson faces shots a bit more frequently than de Gea this season with 4.0 SoT per 90 this season, and his PsXG/SoT per 90 is 0.33, so he is facing harder shots on average, both of which confirm what you're saying.
Anyway, I agree with your main point which is that we don't need to go for the fancy and expensive option to upgrade on de Gea.
I remember reading a report a month or two ago from our chief goalkeeping scout Tony Coton who claimed more or less that there was no 'value in the market' which I think is bollocks.
Also Spurs away I think?
I recall Bruno dribbling into the box and missing a sitter.
Last edited:
In my view, we created and scored enough to win against Spurs, but lost control in the second half, to the extent that we gave up enough chances to end up deservedly conceding twice. I can see why someone might feel differently though. Sancho’ goal was a great finish and somewhat offsets Bruno’s significantly easier miss.
There's no doubt that de Gea's distribution put us under undue pressure in the 2nd half which led to silly turn-overs that resulted in goals, for sure.
Just to be clear, while my long post was about the issues De Gea creates throughout the team, I do of course agree that we badly need to sign a striker.
However the reality is despite that, the number of "big chances" we miss is right on average for a team with our level of possession; we are 6th in terms of highest average possession and 5th in terms of big chances missed, with the 4 teams above us in terms of big chances missed also being above us in terms of possession - Liverpool way out ahead with the most missed, City, Newcastle, Brighton, us. For completeness Arsenal, the other team ahead of us the possession stats are in 7th on big chances missed. The anomaly being Brentford, who while having the 5th lowest average possession, have the 6th most big chances missed - although it is clear they is a stylistic thing due to them playing the ball into the box directly from the goalkeeper or wide centre backs multiple times a game.
So essentially we aren't actually missing more chances than you would expect us to, I understand why it appears that way as we watch United more than other teams and the misses stick in our head because we aren't making up for it by scoring a goal 5 minutes later like several other teams at the top end of the table.
So what the data in both this and my previous post would suggest to me (and I appreciate this is very obvious regardless of data) is that if we had more possession, we would create more chances on average. However, in order for us to consistently both hold more possession AND create more "big chances" we need to be able to play football higher up the pitch than we do at present, and that is where the goalkeeper comes in. If your goalkeeper is a few yards further up on average and looking for balls over the top to deal with, the team can step further forward and compress the play in attacking areas which makes keeping possession so much easier. Or if the goalkeeper makes themselves a genuine option in possession rather than a last resort, the ball moves from point a to point b much quicker and the attack starts from a different point meaning the opposition have to shift across leading to potential space being created.
Just to add in terms of the West Ham game as you mention it; the goal wasn't the worst aspect of his game that day for me, any goalkeeper can make a mistake like that occasionally. Worse for me was him twice passing the ball to West Ham attackers in the final third, him staying down feigning injury while West Ham had possession in our penalty area and finally (and most of all) it was him refusing to leave his area to collect the ball late on when we were chasing the game, forcing Lindelof or Shaw to run 30/40 yards back which both wasted time and allowed West Ham's defence to regroup.
Fantastic analysis and clearly shows what many have said for a long time now, that DDG is simply not a good goalkeeper. We simply have to upgrade and let him leave.