Dean Henderson

Far from a perfect performance, miskicked a few balls straight to their players and i don't feel too confident whenever the ball is played back to him and he could have done with some saves but overall really solid display in a game with loads of pressure on him (not in the game actually, wasn't tested that much, but he was surely in the spotlight and he knew this).

I think for the future it would be better to go with Dean as our number one. He is better in the box than Dave and his shot stopping ability is good but of course also de Gea has his advantages. Right now i think both of them are on the same level but as he is younger and has more room for improvement, de Gea is declining and costs us far more than Dean i would be happy with Dean as new number one and investing de Gea wages in other players.

You have to credit him for the second goal. He took half of City out with his throw.

Feel like our corner defending have improved, there are no shots from the corner against us whilst Deano is in goal as far as I can remember recently.

I'm not convinced he's all that much better at commanding his area than De Gea. He's not a big powerful keeper in the mould of Forster or Neuer. But it's about the narrative. Teams will target keepers at corners when there's talk going around that they're struggling with them. It can't be that they do so little research, so it must be that they know all that talk makes the keepers nervous.

The narrative is that Dean isn't weak against physical pressure at corners so teams don't try it on with him the way they do with De Gea.

Brightonian said:

I'm not convinced he's all that much better at commanding his area than De Gea. He's not a big powerful keeper in the mould of Forster or Neuer. But it's about the narrative. Teams will target keepers at corners when there's talk going around that they're struggling with them. It can't be that they do so little research, so it must be that they know all that talk makes the keepers nervous.

The narrative is that Dean isn't weak against physical pressure at corners so teams don't try it on with him the way they do with De Gea.

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Are you basing that on last season or this? He was very good at Sheff Utd and they certainly have missed his presence this season. He needs time to grow into the role at United, I hope Ole gives him plenty.

Brightonian said:

I'm not convinced he's all that much better at commanding his area than De Gea. He's not a big powerful keeper in the mould of Forster or Neuer. But it's about the narrative. Teams will target keepers at corners when there's talk going around that they're struggling with them. It can't be that they do so little research, so it must be that they know all that talk makes the keepers nervous.

The narrative is that Dean isn't weak against physical pressure at corners so teams don't try it on with him the way they do with De Gea.

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Red_toad said:

Are you basing that on last season or this? He was very good at Sheff Utd and they certainly have missed his presence this season. He needs time to grow into the role at United, les hope Ole gives him plenty.

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Interesting you mention last season....



There may be some difference in the way Sheffield United and ourselves defended corners that explains those stats and I'd be very interested to know what it was. On face value though it suggests @Brightonian has a point.

Based on the stats Henderson is definitely better at preventing chances by claiming crosses and sweeping than De Gea but I'm not sure he's much beyond average generally. And in terms of sweeping De Gea has narrowed the gap this season. And those stats above suggest little difference on corners.

If people are expecting a very dominant keeper then I suspect they'll be disappointed. Though if "at least better than De Gea" is what they're looking for in that regard then it's hard to argue he's not.

Edit:

Also De Gea's performance on corners was slightly better this season, as of the start of February. Open play crosses seem to be more his problem. Not sure why Schmeichel suddenly isn't claiming corners this season though, that's some drop off.

He has probably set up as many goals as most of our outfield players at this stage. The way he commands the area is impressive for someone just in the team. He’s good on crosses and he’ll take the ball to feet in tight situations and back himself. His confidence and aggression is refreshing. He’s still got a fair bit of untapped potential and he deserves his chance at this stage.

Well, for me, his involvement in attacks is a breath of fresh air. Reminds me of Schmeichel in that respect.

Grande said:

Well, for me, his involvement in attacks is a breath of fresh air. Reminds me of Schmeichel in that respect.

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Yeah his quick thinking and distribution has played a part in two goals recently with yesterday being a HUGE one

Anyone who thinks de Gea should come back into the team is either living in the past or playing favourites.

Henderson I think he will be more suitable for our current tactic. Increase the control area to make the team push higher line and get a confidence to press.
When comparing two match vs City in league, Our four defenders' heat map are higher than home game and our full backs are wider than the home game. (maybe relied on tactic changed)
But a well defend organization is more important than a God save, God saves are mostly depended on a failure of defend to make opposite player shot in a good angle/power.

Blades1889 said:

I don’t get this though. De Gea has his moments of madness but isn’t dropped for them. Got to learn from mistakes.

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Theres making mistakes and then there is being awful. So far so good, let's see how it goes. ddg ultimately is established so will get away with more.

It may well be that he wants to move back to spain in the summer anyway.

Out of the 36 goalkeepers that has started a Premier League game this season, he is the fifth youngest. Hope we remember that he is still a very young lad, and back him through difficulties.

I like the guy, and I hope he continues as number 1. Give him the game time and then judge him whether he has what it takes. So far so good, and he will only get better.

sullydnl said:

Interesting you mention last season....

There may be some difference in the way Sheffield United and ourselves defended corners that explains those stats and I'd be very interested to know what it was. On face value though it suggests @Brightonian has a point.

Based on the stats Henderson is definitely better at preventing chances by claiming crosses and sweeping than De Gea but I'm not sure he's much beyond average generally. And in terms of sweeping De Gea has narrowed the gap this season. And those stats above suggest little difference on corners.

If people are expecting a very dominant keeper then I suspect they'll be disappointed. Though if "at least better than De Gea" is what they're looking for in that regard then it's hard to argue he's not.

Edit:

Also De Gea's performance on corners was slightly better this season, as of the start of February. Open play crosses seem to be more his problem. Not sure why Schmeichel suddenly isn't claiming corners this season though, that's some drop off.

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Honestly, without seeing the data behind this chart Id be wary about drawing conclusions from it. On general crosses, Nick Pope has both the highest number of successful takes, and the highest success rate in the league. He's comfortably the most assertive cross taker and the most successful cross taker in the league. Yet he's in the bottom left quadrant. Sanchez on the other hand is poor on crosses, ranking about 15th in the league, with a success rate of less than half of Nick Pope's. Yet on corners he's the standout keeper in the league, apparently.

Highest clean sheet % of any United goalkeeper with at least 10 clean sheets. Legend.

Like a new signing. Defence so much more confident with him in goal.

largelyworried said:

Honestly, without seeing the data behind this chart Id be wary about drawing conclusions from it. On general crosses, Nick Pope has both the highest number of successful takes, and the highest success rate in the league. He's comfortably the most assertive cross taker and the most successful cross taker in the league. Yet he's in the bottom left quadrant. Sanchez on the other hand is poor on crosses, ranking about 15th in the league, with a success rate of less than half of Nick Pope's. Yet on corners he's the standout keeper in the league, apparently.

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You can see the definitions used here:

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In terms of Pope in particular he references some missed and poor punches this season, whereas you can see that last season he was where you'd expect him to be in the top right corner. In terms of Sanchez, I think it's just a function of him facing fewer corners. That 20/21 table is taken from the start of Feb, at which point Sanchez had only just faced enough to be included in the stats. It may be that he regresses as time goes on.

largelyworried said:

Honestly, without seeing the data behind this chart Id be wary about drawing conclusions from it. On general crosses, Nick Pope has both the highest number of successful takes, and the highest success rate in the league. He's comfortably the most assertive cross taker and the most successful cross taker in the league. Yet he's in the bottom left quadrant. Sanchez on the other hand is poor on crosses, ranking about 15th in the league, with a success rate of less than half of Nick Pope's. Yet on corners he's the standout keeper in the league, apparently.

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I wonder if they’re using a weird definition of claim? Like if they punch the corner it’s counted as a failed attempt to “claim”?

Pogue Mahone said:

I wonder if they’re using a weird definition of claim? Like if they punch the corner it’s counted as a failed attempt to “claim”?

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"A successful interception attempt is any clean catch or any punch which clears the danger. An unsuccessful interception attempt is a punch which fails to clear danger or when the GK completely misses the ball."

That throw reminded me of Schmeichel

sullydnl said:

"A successful interception attempt is any clean catch or any punch which clears the danger. An unsuccessful interception attempt is a punch which fails to clear danger or when the GK completely misses the ball."

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Ok, grand. It’s still very reductive. I’m a big fan of keepers who catch the ball from crosses. It guarantees possession for his team and kills the attack stone dead. The fact it would be considered exactly the same as a punch which just about “clears the danger” (however that is defined!) will muddy the waters a lot.

Come into this thread expecting tons of praise for Henderson, find out that forum posters are calling him "average" after a clean sheet against Manchester City, some good saves, and his 10th clean sheet in 15 games, this place never changes

If he keeps this up I'm not sure how Ole can put De Gea back in as number one when he returns.

Pogue Mahone said:

Ok, grand. It’s still very reductive. I’m a big fan of keepers who catch the ball from crosses. It guarantees possession for his team and kills the attack stone dead. The fact it would be considered exactly the same as a punch which just about “clears the danger” (however that is defined!) will muddy the waters a lot.

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Catches being better than punches is taken into account in the ExG prevented side of things I think as he notes the difference between the two as well. So they both count as claiming but catching prevents more of whatever the hell ExG is.

The biggest thing for me is the defence look far more comfortable with him behind them, whether that's the knowledge he will come and deal with things or the fact he's communicating better it's clear things look tighter.

I don't know if this has been clever management by Ole but it does now seem the break De Gea has been given is basically an easy was to deflect the attention away from the fact he's was going to be dropped anyway. De Gea will come back and Ole will have the 'It's hard to drop Henderson' excuse firmly in his favour now.

I dont recall the details, but there was a dangerous through-ball played in the first half that Henderson did well to come out and claim. I remember thinking at the time that De Gea would not have been there for that. The player would have been clean through.

sullydnl said:

You can see the definitions used here:

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In terms of Pope in particular he references some missed and poor punches this season, whereas you can see that last season he was where you'd expect him to be in the top right corner. In terms of Sanchez, I think it's just a function of him facing fewer corners. That 20/21 table is taken from the start of Feb, at which point Sanchez had only just faced enough to be included in the stats. It may be that he regresses as time goes on.

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It doesn't tell us the absolute numbers involved as far as I can spot. However his reference to "a few misses and poor punches have a large impact" suggests we're dealing with small numbers here. That's obviously problematic if true, so I'd be minded to stick with looking at normal crosses where we have a larger data set to deal with.

GazTheLegend said:

Come into this thread expecting tons of praise for Henderson, find out that forum posters are calling him "average" after a clean sheet against Manchester City, some good saves, and his 10th clean sheet in 15 games, this place never changes

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For what it's worth, I suspect he'll turn out to be quite a bit above average. I just worry that people are expecting him to be a different sort of goalkeeper than he actually is and will (inevitably) start bitching about him when they realise that.

Based on the bits I saw of Sheffield United last season and (more importantly) the stats, he's a very good shot stopper first and foremost (and is perhaps slightly underrated in that regard here), while being average in terms of things like dealing with corners, sweeping and distribution.

Whereas I think because people are comparing him to De Gea (who has been consistently average or below average in those regards) they're imagining him to be more "commanding" than he actually is relative to most PL goalkeepers (at least based on last season, which he could obviously improve on given it was his first season).

Eternitiy said:

Anyone who thinks de Gea should come back into the team is either living in the past or playing favourites.

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Agreed. De Gea should only come back into the starting position if Henderson ends up having a few calamities, but if he keeps performing as he is - solid, rather than outstanding so far - then it'd be daft to take him out of the team. I'd like to see him keep his place for the rest of the season if he can keep playing this way and keep improving.

For what it’s worth I do think he will become our long term Gk

...but aren’t people getting ahead of themselves here? He’s barely had anything to do against city and I distinctly remember him parrying A shot into a danger area on one and a few mis-kicks straight to city player.

I do feel he commands corners better than DDG but that’s not exactly a hard thing to do is it for a prem goalie, I also worry as he doesn’t look as comfortable with ball at feet as DDG

It's just a coincidence that when Henderson plays, we get a clean sheet almost every game.

He also only plays against shite teams, like Man City for example, so it's normal that they can't score against us.

Rilz said:

For what it’s worth I do think he will become our long term Gk

...but aren’t people getting ahead of themselves here? He’s barely had anything to do against city and I distinctly remember him parrying A shot into a danger area on one and a few mis-kicks straight to city player.

I do feel he commands corners better than DDG but that’s not exactly a hard thing to do is it for a prem goalie, I also worry as he doesn’t look as comfortable with ball at feet as DDG

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Have a table for that too:



A large part of that could presumably be down to the differences in how we and and Sheffield United play though (i.e. if we present better options for short passes then it's easier for our GK to be accurate when making short passes).

It does underline the point that we really haven't seen enough of Henderson to judge though and that he should be getting a run in the team so we have a better idea.

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Great work ethic. So clear he is working to become brilliant at David's biggest flaw

I am glad some pundits started the praise, even if over the top. Only way in forcing him to the No 1 spot, Ole is sleeping in De Gea's shirt.

A lot of the tactics that the opposition would normally use to target us are neutralised when we play Deano instead. I’m sure he has other weaknesses that haven’t been highlighted yet but the oppo are almost playing into his hands with searching percentage balls over the top trying to catch us flat and crosses trying to bully our defenders. Henderson is good at cleaning that sort of threat up and organising the defenders. His distribution is patchy but he can be creative when it comes off. It’s all good so far. He could turn out to be a very good player.

What also goes un noticed is that when he plays we can deploy a higher line because he is so quick of his line to clear the ball.

DDG almost never comes out of his 6 yard box means defence

I am hearing quite a bit from the experts on youtube that "Henderson did well but he didn't really get tested today". At what point do they realize that this isn't a coincidence?

Vs West Ham "he didn't really get tested"
Vs Real Sociedad "he didn't really get tested"
Vs City "he didn't really get tested"

Amazing how a vocal keeper who isn't glued to his line and plays his angles right "doesn't really get tested" and how a Maguire and Lindelof partnership actually looks good with a proper keeper behind them...

There was one save in particular that Henderson made yesterday that really caught my eye. Maguire (I think) was in position that was taking away Henderson's right side of goal so Henderson shifted to his left. A low hard shot was hit and Henderson took a step to his left and dealt with it easily. De Gea's fear of getting off his goal line is well documented. What many don't notice is his positioning on shots. Had this been De Gea in goal there is no doubt in my mind that he would have saved the shot, but he wouldn't have been cheating to his left and would have had to dive to make the save. He just doesn't play his angles right and is often in the wrong position when a shot is taken.

Case in point. Go to around the :50 point. Rodriguez scores what the pundits called "a screamer". But look at De Gea's positioning. Maguire is taking away the entire left side of De Gea's goal so all the Rodriguez can see is near post. So De Gea should be cheating to his right and out about 5 yards to cut the angle. If he is, then it's a routine save


Then look at this goal. We all know about the one De Gea let slip through his fingers, but as bad as that was, it's not a reason to give up on him. "Big mistakes" where the keeper is at fault for the goal don't bother me as much. Those likely won't happen. It's the mistakes that most people don't know about that really bother me. Messi shoots far post and it goes off the post and in. It looks like a great shot. But Smalling is taking away the entire left side of De Gea's goal and Messi is moving across goal. De Gea should see this and be moving to his right. Instead he is planted pretty much in the middle (the angle from behind really shows it). If he's shifting his feet with this (as Henderson does) he makes a routine save. But because he's out of position, it goes in the net off the post. There is also no doubt in my mind that De Gea a couple years ago would have made that save. But each year he loses a little bit of the spring in his step, which is why knowledge of his position becomes so much more important


And these are just two examples. There have been several occasions where I have noticed things that most don't (I've been a keeper most of my life). And on many of those occasions where I have pointed out De Gea's flaws I have been insulted and ignored. People are finally starting to catch on to his glaring mistakes, but I'm telling you there is a reason why Henderson "rarely gets tested" in the matches he plays. He will never be as agile as De Gea was but I am convinced that we will concede less goals with Henderson than we will with De Gea.

Henderson is becoming a great keeper. De Gea is a keeper who makes great saves...There's a huge difference

Dean is a much more intimidating presence than DDG too. There’s a chance Henderson might hurt you in a 50/50 and he’s not going to shirk a challenge. Surely that’ll play on attackers minds a little bit when they are going through.

romufc said:

What also goes un noticed is that when he plays we can deploy a higher line because he is so quick of his line to clear the ball.

DDG almost never comes out of his 6 yard box means defence

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See, this is the kind of thing I mean when I worry that people are misjudging the type of goalkeeper Henderson is.

Is Henderson quicker to sweep off his line than De Gea? Obviously, though De Gea has actually improved quite a bit in that regard this season. Is Henderson generally a very good sweeper? Probably not. During his Sheffield United season he was bang on average for the league statistically and I haven't seen him do much this season in that regard beyond what you'd expect an average keeper to do.

So if the argument is that we're better able to play a high-line because Henderson is a better sweeper than De Gea, that's fine. But if people get it into their head that Henderson is quick to sweep by general standards or that he'll be our equivalent of an Ederson/Alison then they'll be disappointed once they stop having De Gea to compare him to.

I have such a clear image in my head of Henderson ousting De Gea, everyone celebrating that we now have a commanding, pro-active, "modern" goalkeeper, only to slowly realise that by the league's general standards he's average in those regards and also relies a lot on his shot stopping to stand out.