The FA Cup final with City comes to mind.
David De Gea Appreciation Thread
- Thread starter Mr.Ridiculous__
- Start date
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Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) discuss United's fantastic win away against Athletic Club in the semi-final of the Europa League.
They also pick out the positives of United's 4-3 loss away at Brentford, and Nik reviews a day out at Old Trafford watching Manchester United Women qualify for the Champions League.
Onana hasn’t staying lying down from a little 50/50 while the opposing team kicked the ball into an empty goal yet and isn’t afraid of contact to be fair to him
It’s the little things
We will never know because he didn't renew but you don't typically hear of players renewing for less money
Loved DDG and he’s a legend of the club but yeah, should have done better with City’s winner.
You're right. De Gea should have been sold years ago before his eventual depature. In his first couple of years he was good and reliable but in his last 5 seasons he was terrible and very inconsistent.
De Gea is not a Man Utd legend and he should never be put in the same bracket as Schmeichel and Van Der Sar. Those two are not only Man Utd's Gk GOATs but also one of the best goalkeepers of all time.
Due to his goalkeeping, the Fa Cup final. He did miss the vital penalty in the shootout in the Europa final but that isn't about goalkeeping.
Onana hasn’t staying lying down from a little 50/50 while the opposing team kicked the ball into an empty goal yet and isn’t afraid of contact to be fair to him
It’s the little things
This is still worse
The 11 penalties he got nowhere near had a little bit to do with goalkeeping.
Doesn't make him a better keeper. Sorry, but every year de gea has been here he's been better than Onana in his time here to date.Onana hasn’t staying lying down from a little 50/50 while the opposing team kicked the ball into an empty goal yet and isn’t afraid of contact to be fair to him
It’s the little things
David De Gea cost us that final? I remember City outplaying us on every inch of grass and we struggling to score or create a goal. Gundogan scoring a volley from the edge of the box, the ball blazing over Varane leg and De Gea touching the ball is somehow De Gea costing us the final?
I guess repeating a laughable claim for long enough and somehow people think it’s a fact.
It’s not though
Go check for yourself mate. I'm not getting into an debate about it. Like I said he cost us too.
Have you even watched the FA cup final of 2023?
I agree actually. But after saying how shite DDG was for at least 5 years, I thought I'd give him some leeway.
You clearly have no clue what you are talking about. Two finals he lost playing for us, in both of them we scored a single goal. One of them a jammy ricochet and a tap in, the other other a gifted penalty by a stupid handball by Grealish. Verdict DDG cost us finals.
Nothing official. A while back I went and watched all the goals that we conceded for the last couple of months that he was here, so it was just my opinion about which ones were outright mistakes and which ones were 'he could have done better' but not enough to be classed as a mistake. It might have been 8 in 13 games, but it was definitely something like that. I encourage you to go back and do the same if you don't want to take my opinion, because I'm confident that I was fair about it. I think it was just PL games, but I'm not 100% certain about that.
I did the same thing with Onana after his poor start at Utd (judging him exactly the same) and while he was bad he actually wasn't as bad as De Gea's end of 18/19. He ended up being directly at fault for something like 7 goals in 15 games if I remember correctly. Once again though there were others that he could have done better with. Of course I'm comparing his start with the worst form of De Gea's career, and neither stayed at that level of bad for long (although Onana's recent form seems to be sliding that way again).
In terms of what is a mistake and what is 'could have done better', the two goals we conceded against Lyon are good examples. The first was a mistake from Onana, the second was one that he could have done better but I wouldn't consider an outright mistake. If you go in with a higher level of expectation then the numbers for both of them would get worse.
Yeah , he also cost us many league games. Listen fella, I've seen Dave do amazing saves, christ I've even sung his songs in the stands. So relax with the I know nothing. Probably been to more games than you've watched on tv.
Listen fella, you can keep your top red/been to more games nonsense for yourself. I know a regular match goer, and he is one of the biggest idiots i have known to support the club. And by that finals logic of yours, you obviously talk a lot of nonsense.
I am someone who never ever denied that DDG made mistakes, was on decline and should have been replaced in the right way. However lots of agenda driven opinions are stated as facts.
Yes he could have done better against Gundogan for the second goal, yes he could have saved a penalty against Villareal in the EL final, but to claim he cost us finals? In games in which the entire team was absolute shit and lacking.
Will do, however that number 8 in 13 games looks way too much in the first place, which made me thinking.
Well with that thinking maybe give Onana a bit of slack seeing as he also is surrounded by crap. Ha, top red. Not heard that I stopped using Twitter. Have a good day fella.
When I look back at De Gea's time at Man Utd, it was a hit and miss. De Gea spent twice as much time as Edwin did at Man Utd. That's kind of crazy. De Gea was never a world class GK and he was massively overhyped by our fans.
He was a bench warmer for Spain and one time that he had a chance in a big international tournament, he bottled it and was directly responsible for Spain's exit at the World Cup. He had a couple of good season in Utd shirt but in his last 5 he was abysmal.
He was a never proper replacement for Van Der Sar and some Utd fans put De Gea in the same bracket as De Gea and Schmeichel which is kind of ridiculous. He was obviously better than Onana and that's why there is a lot of revisionism about De Gea these days.
Stupidest take I've ever seen. Between 2013-17 he was easily one of the top two keepers in the world.
Absolutely terrible take
I admire your approach to debating on internet forums.
He certainly wasn't. Spanish GK coaches prefered Unai Simon over him. He was a solid shotstopper for a couple of years but then rapidly declined in his late 20s.
He was terrible with his feet, terrible at defending set pieces and crosses, he couldn't command his box and had a poor communication with his defenders. He was also prone to blunders and mistakes.
What kind of goalkeeper declines when he is 27? We thought that Edwin was old when we bought him and then begged him not to retire when he was 41.
For most of our modern history we had terrible or average goalkeepers and only two of them were world class and actually one of the best of all time as well. Massimo Taibi, Carroll, Mark Bosnich, Andre Onana, Fabian Barthez.
Tim Howard was too young but a great goalkeeper. Fabian Barthez was a flop at Man Utd but a very good GK for France. David De Gea was good in his first years at Utd but terrible in his last 5.
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The whole post is a car crash but this bit especially, Jesus wept.
What the hell is the point of this thread?
Onana being crap doesn't mean De Gea wasn't an absolute liability before he left.
I vote turd sandwich!
Onana being crap doesn't mean De Gea wasn't an absolute liability before he left.
I vote turd sandwich!
He started very young, keepers are no different to outfield players, it's wear and tear, he played for us as a 19 year old and left at 31, and is still playing at a high level.
Secondly, he has over 45 caps for Spain and was the regular keeper once Casillas retired and until he made those errors against Portugal.
Thirdly, he wasnt just good for us, he won player of the year 4 times, he is literally one of the two or three players post Fergie who you could actually say raised their stock as a player.
I'd imagine it's about praising one of our best ever keepers? He's not coming back so I don't see how this has to do with Onana.
He's playing for a mid table Serie A team, that's hardly a "high level". No team wanted him for a year and he was still in his goalkeeping prime.
He last played for Spain in 2020 and Unai Simon is no goalkeeping giant. And being the best player in post Fergie years is hardly a big achievement. He was a good goalkeeper and definitely better than Onana but he's no Man Utd legend.
From what I've seen not many people rated him outside of Man Utd fanbase. But even within our fanbase he was a divisive figure.
I never understood posts that say: "Onana is worse, but De Gea had to go".
No, De Gea did not have to go. It was a very bad decision to let De Gea go. Why? Because obviously we replaced him with a goalkeeper who is worse! No question about it, Onana is worse than De Gea, this is a fact. We all know that if we still had both De Gea and Onana, then Onana would not play at all. So, obviously it was a bad decision to replace De Gea with Onana, this is elementary logic.
If you replace your car with a car that it is worse, you made a mistake. If you divorce your wife and marry again, and your new wife is worse and makes you more unhappy, then you made a mistake. I have no idea how can anyone claim otherwise! It is just common sense.
On the other hand, we did try to replace De Gea with Henderson and it failed because Henderson was worse. So, we let Henderson go. That was a normal, logical, common sense decision.
To let De Gea go, before we had a better goalkeeper was obviously a mistake, it was a HUGE mistake, it was the wrong decision. Now we have to buy another goalkeeper, and chances are that the new one will again be worse than De Gea.
No, De Gea did not have to go. It was a very bad decision to let De Gea go. Why? Because obviously we replaced him with a goalkeeper who is worse! No question about it, Onana is worse than De Gea, this is a fact. We all know that if we still had both De Gea and Onana, then Onana would not play at all. So, obviously it was a bad decision to replace De Gea with Onana, this is elementary logic.
If you replace your car with a car that it is worse, you made a mistake. If you divorce your wife and marry again, and your new wife is worse and makes you more unhappy, then you made a mistake. I have no idea how can anyone claim otherwise! It is just common sense.
On the other hand, we did try to replace De Gea with Henderson and it failed because Henderson was worse. So, we let Henderson go. That was a normal, logical, common sense decision.
To let De Gea go, before we had a better goalkeeper was obviously a mistake, it was a HUGE mistake, it was the wrong decision. Now we have to buy another goalkeeper, and chances are that the new one will again be worse than De Gea.
The point of the thread is that the best three goalkeepers we had in the past 40 years were: Schmeichel, VDS and De Gea.
(And we let De Gea go for free and replaced him with the worst goalkeeper of the past 40 years! )
The point of the thread was to praise De Gea, as it was created at a point where people were being overly critical of him as he left the club based on his final years' drop off in form.
But because of Onana's performances it has turned into some weird Onana v De Gea thread instead, which is a shame.
He's really not a divisive figure among our fan base. At least not when he was at his peak. Unless you count you vs everybody else as a significant divide.
You are bang on with your timeline. I have no idea how DDG survived between 2019-2021, he was really poor but somehow turned it around in his final two seasons.
As you said, he ended them on a poor note and that reinforced the need to have him sold.
I think by the end, he’d been here too long and his flaws were not going to change and people just got fed up of his style. Fans were willing to accept a worse shot stopper if it meant we could finally have a goalie who was commanding on set pieces, was proactive in coming off their line and could play out from the back. The thinking was even if we got less super human saves, as a team we would be better overall.
In hindsight, it was probably a mistake to sell him and I say that as someone who was strongly against him getting a new contract. The issue was we were so jaded with his type of keeper and put way too much blame on him being the reason we were a poor possession side. Since he’s gone we’ve barely improved in playing out from the back. Onana is shite but he’s a serviceable passer but he hasn’t had the transformative effect on our ability from the back because we overstated the impact a gk could have in this. The gk, defence and DM are all pivotal in this and if all aren’t clicking it doesn’t work it isn’t just on the goalkeeper.
The right move looking back at it was to sign a young gk like Verbruggen in 23/24 and keep De Gea. In 22/23 he played very well until the last third where he had costly errors but there was still a good goalie there. He needed to be replaced but maybe not sold.
Even with the matches he cost us, its no way near the absolute disaster Onana has been. Onana isnt fit to lace Dave's boots
Have you been reading the thread?
I’m constantly impressed by how good/accurate your memory is when it comes to previous seasons. Seriously. It’s amazing. Fair play. Do you take fish oil tablets?!?
My memory isn’t a patch on yours but I can remember enough to agree with the post 2018 World Cup decline. He thoroughly deserved to be dropped by Spain and never did enough to get his place back. That was a career decline, completely independent of Manchester United, which shows that any talk of “a few months poor form” is nonsense.
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This isn't really an appreciation thread anymore, is it...
I agree with all that, I even agreed with it at the time. I still think it was a mistake to sell him.
Not because he was good enough for constant trophy challanges, but because of all the problems that quad had, he was way down the list.
We couldn't keep possession and we couldn't score. The thing we needed most of all was a goal scorer. We still do. We did need another keeper, but we did not need one right there and then. We needed goals.
The fact onana has not improved the build up play at all, and been worse in actually doing keeper stuff, is just the icing on the cake.
The arguments been done to death on this thread (and at least two others) but I can definitely see the logic in moving on a goalkeeper who wasn’t good enough and was one of the best paid footballers on the planet. It really shouldn’t have been difficult to pick up a better goalkeeper than end stage De Gea for not much money. God knows most other PL clubs have done exactly that at least once. Yet here we are.