De Gea Replacement - Do not use for player performance chat

JB7

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We need a ball playing CM, a RW, a striker (since Martial is rarely available) and even a RB before we need a GK.

One bad game doesn't mean the end of the world, De Gea isn't at the godly levels he was once at but he's still comfortably better than 99% of keepers we could realistically get. We saw with Henderson that the problem with these ball playing GKs like Ederson is that they usually aren't very good shot stoppers. Then you have likes of the Brighton keeper Sanchez, Meslier, Guita etc who are good at both but not great enough (yet for the younger ones) to really be worth replacing De Gea with.

His contract expires in around 2 years? That would be a good time to line up a replacement. Easiest solution would be to hope Henderson has a great season at Forest and then give him the no.1 spot with De Gea on the bench if we take up the extra year on his contract. We don't have the funds to spend 50m on a keeper when we still need to fix so many positions.
Firstly, no, it's not "one bad game". It is year and years of utter shite from him. And as such he's really not better than 99% of goalkeepers we could sign. He's absolutely the wrong type of goalkeeper for this team, you can't play a high line and have a goalkeeper that doesn't leave his line in or out of possession; as such a relatively average goalkeeper would most likely see an overall improvement as they would offer degrees of protection to the defenders that De Gea does not offer. Last season people had him down as our player of the year yet he was the worst goalkeeper in the entire league at dealing with crosses & sweeping behind his defenders, the guy offers no support to the defenders whatsoever and it's a joke that he's still playing for us.

Second, he's out of contract and the end of this season thank god. Taking up the option on his contract would be absolute insanity that no club other than United would do. No other big clubs, with the possible exception of Juventus, would touch him.
 

marktan

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Firstly, no, it's not "one bad game". It is year and years of utter shite from him. And as such he's really not better than 99% of goalkeepers we could sign. He's absolutely the wrong type of goalkeeper for this team, you can't play a high line and have a goalkeeper that doesn't leave his line in or out of possession; as such a relatively average goalkeeper would most likely see an overall improvement as they would offer degrees of protection to the defenders that De Gea does not offer. Last season people had him down as our player of the year yet he was the worst goalkeeper in the entire league at dealing with crosses & sweeping behind his defenders, the guy offers no support to the defenders whatsoever and it's a joke that he's still playing for us.

Second, he's out of contract and the end of this season thank god. Taking up the option on his contract would be absolute insanity that no club other than United would do. No other big clubs, with the possible exception of Juventus, would touch him.
And we tried Henderson for quite a few games where he was a sweeper and all that other fancy nonsense and he was worse than De Gea. When I said better than 99% of available keepers I meant his shot stopping in particular.
 

croadyman

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Firstly, no, it's not "one bad game". It is year and years of utter shite from him. And as such he's really not better than 99% of goalkeepers we could sign. He's absolutely the wrong type of goalkeeper for this team, you can't play a high line and have a goalkeeper that doesn't leave his line in or out of possession; as such a relatively average goalkeeper would most likely see an overall improvement as they would offer degrees of protection to the defenders that De Gea does not offer. Last season people had him down as our player of the year yet he was the worst goalkeeper in the entire league at dealing with crosses & sweeping behind his defenders, the guy offers no support to the defenders whatsoever and it's a joke that he's still playing for us.

Second, he's out of contract and the end of this season thank god. Taking up the option on his contract would be absolute insanity that no club other than United would do. No other big clubs, with the possible exception of Juventus, would touch him.
Yeah it's a bigger issue than some would have you believe, however the problems are

A Too many other holes in first XI
B Ridiculously high wages
 

CloneMC16

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We need a ball playing CM, a RW, a striker (since Martial is rarely available) and even a RB before we need a GK.

One bad game doesn't mean the end of the world, De Gea isn't at the godly levels he was once at but he's still comfortably better than 99% of keepers we could realistically get. We saw with Henderson that the problem with these ball playing GKs like Ederson is that they usually aren't very good shot stoppers. Then you have likes of the Brighton keeper Sanchez, Meslier, Guita etc who are good at both but not great enough (yet for the younger ones) to really be worth replacing De Gea with.

His contract expires in around 2 years? That would be a good time to line up a replacement. Easiest solution would be to hope Henderson has a great season at Forest and then give him the no.1 spot with De Gea on the bench if we take up the extra year on his contract. We don't have the funds to spend 50m on a keeper when we still need to fix so many positions.
It's not one bad game. De Gea is massively deficient in multiple areas of goalkeeping. The stats show how bad he is and the eye test easily shows it. Bottom of the Premier League for crosses stopped and very far down for defensive actions outside of his box. These are fundamentals for an elite goalkeeper. A goalkeeper that does those two things helps to stop their team from conceding chances on goal and goals themselves. When De Gea ignores these parts of the game, it puts the team under more pressure. It increases our chances of conceding. He may save a shot that another goalkeeper would have prevented happening in the first place, but that still puts the rest of the team under pressure.

He's also very bad at stopping close range 1v1's. He stays on his line and refuses to engage the opposition forward. He makes an already bad situation even worse. A more proactive keeper gives the opponent far less time to close in on goal and score. I'm also pretty certain that he's scared of getting into contact with opposition players. He turns his body away when he's in 1v1's.

Then you come to the distribution side of his game. It's another area he is very poor in. The style ETH wants to play is practically impossible to do with De Gea in goal. Build up starts from the back and De Gea is terrible with the ball at his feet. He'll make poor decisions like he did against Brentford and cost us the match. When he's being pressed, all composure goes out of the window. He boots the ball out of play or straight back to the opposition defenders. That puts the team under more pressure. If our team is going to push up to the half way line, we need a keeper that we know is going to sweep when the ball is played over the defence. We don't have that.

De Gea needs to be replaced immediately. We're going to concede so many goals if we continue to play how ETH wants with him in goal. You don't need to spend £50m on a keeper to get someone better than De Gea. An average keeper in any of the top leagues is better than De Gea. They won't all cost £50m.
 
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JB7

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And we tried Henderson for quite a few games where he was a sweeper and all that other fancy nonsense and he was worse than De Gea. When I said better than 99% of available keepers I meant his shot stopping in particular.
It's been done to death but literally every performance metric was considerably better with Henderson in goal, both the individual statistics (including shot stopping by the way) and the team statistics. It wasn't even close.

And why? Shot stopping is only relevant if you can't stop the shot happening and as a goalkeeper more often than not your best opportunity to stop the goal is by cutting the ball out leading to the chance. It's really not complicated or modern.
 

JB7

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agree with the first one, but come on, the second one there’s no chance for De Gea to sweep on that goal.
Yeah, there really is. Balls further ahead of the attacker than it looks in those two replays, he doesn't actually catch up to it until the third bounce. It's the goalkeepers ball all day long.
 

CloneMC16

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Yeah, there really is. Balls further ahead of the attacker than it looks in those two replays, he doesn't actually catch up to it until the third bounce. It's the goalkeepers ball all day long.
I find it hard to even classify this as sweeping. It's about leaving his line at all. De Gea allows the opposition forward to run into his 6 yard box and score. He has almost no chance of reacting to a shot that close to goal. To concede in that way is disgusting. If he actually engages, he makes it way harder for them to score. Almost every keeper in the PL engages in this scenario and makes the forward work to score.

Found this set of Tweets that John Harrison posted in regards to 1v1's:


De Gea used the " wait deep & then react to the shot " technique and the attacker ran into his 6 yard box. He had next to no chance of making a save.

Also found his analysis of the goal in question:


He is a massive problem and I'm happy to see more of our fans seeing it now.
 
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JB7

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I find it hard to even classify this as sweeping. It's about leaving his line at all. De Gea allows the opposition forward to run into his 6 yard box and score. He has almost no chance of reacting to a shot that close to goal. To concede in that way is disgusting. If he actually engages, he makes it way harder for them to score. Almost every keeper in the PL engages in this scenario and makes the forward work to score.
You're right, it's not sweeping. It's basic goalkeeping. De Gea is exactly the type of goalkeeper we used to laugh at clubs for rating in the 90s, Shay Given & Newcastle fans thinking he was great being one that always comes to mind.
 

Trequartistry

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We need a ball playing CM, a RW, a striker (since Martial is rarely available) and even a RB before we need a GK.

One bad game doesn't mean the end of the world, De Gea isn't at the godly levels he was once at but he's still comfortably better than 99% of keepers we could realistically get. We saw with Henderson that the problem with these ball playing GKs like Ederson is that they usually aren't very good shot stoppers. Then you have likes of the Brighton keeper Sanchez, Meslier, Guita etc who are good at both but not great enough (yet for the younger ones) to really be worth replacing De Gea with.

His contract expires in around 2 years? That would be a good time to line up a replacement. Easiest solution would be to hope Henderson has a great season at Forest and then give him the no.1 spot with De Gea on the bench if we take up the extra year on his contract. We don't have the funds to spend 50m on a keeper when we still need to fix so many positions.
I still can’t believe this is an opinion. De Gea could have gone the Brentford game without making those howlers, it doesn’t change anything - he’s still a really poor goalkeeper. ‘One bad game’ I don’t think you understand the goalkeeping in todays game. For your sake anyways let’s forget sweeping and all that ‘malarkey’, this guy has cost us time and time again in big games, massive games and finals even before the Europa League final so please let’s never say ‘one bad game’ when it’s been about 6 years of bad games. From his debut the community shield to the FA Cup final when a Puncheon beat him at his near post to when Vardy rounded him so easily in the Community shield under Mourinho, nutmegged in the Carabao cup final while being glued to his line in the Super Cup v Madrid. It’s not ‘one bad game’ - these are just finals alone. Other big games just off the top of my head, City for the league title when Kompany scored that header, last game at Upton Park for UCL, Alonso’s goal at Old Trafford for the UCL, Messi’s goal in the UCL. There’s probably a million more examples

Those positions you said we need, what happens when we get all those positions but we can’t even get the ball to them because our goalkeeper is just completely unable to even get the ball out of his feet. What happens when every time we might have a chance, he doesn’t come out for a cross and the opposition score?

Just a reminder, he’s in the bottom 4 percentile for crosses stopped and bottom 5 percentile for defensive actions outside the penalty area compared to other goalkeepers in the big 5 leagues over the past 365 days
 

lex talionis

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The two massive mistakes De Gea committed against Brentford, especially on the first goal, seriously damage the case for De Gea. If he can no longer save routine shots on goal, we need to consider handing the gloves to Heaton as it's clearly too late right now to start looking for a top keeper.

But if we do go down this road and we start leaking goals that De Gea used to prevent on a routine basis that few keepers who have ever lived could save, I hope we'll all be comforted with the fact that we now have a ball playing keeper.
 

Rojofiam

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Meslier or this Costa dude please, next summer. Would actually be shrewd business from us to get a number 2 this year (someone like Sommer), and a long-term number 1 in 2023, with De Gea leaving on a free.
 

Idxomer

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I still can’t believe this is an opinion. De Gea could have gone the Brentford game without making those howlers, it doesn’t change anything - he’s still a really poor goalkeeper. ‘One bad game’ I don’t think you understand the goalkeeping in todays game. For your sake anyways let’s forget sweeping and all that ‘malarkey’, this guy has cost us time and time again in big games, massive games and finals even before the Europa League final so please let’s never say ‘one bad game’ when it’s been about 6 years of bad games. From his debut the community shield to the FA Cup final when a Puncheon beat him at his near post to when Vardy rounded him so easily in the Community shield under Mourinho, nutmegged in the Carabao cup final while being glued to his line in the Super Cup v Madrid. It’s not ‘one bad game’ - these are just finals alone. Other big games just off the top of my head, City for the league title when Kompany scored that header, last game at Upton Park for UCL, Alonso’s goal at Old Trafford for the UCL, Messi’s goal in the UCL. There’s probably a million more examples

Those positions you said we need, what happens when we get all those positions but we can’t even get the ball to them because our goalkeeper is just completely unable to even get the ball out of his feet. What happens when every time we might have a chance, he doesn’t come out for a cross and the opposition score?

Just a reminder, he’s in the bottom 4 percentile for crosses stopped and bottom 5 percentile for defensive actions outside the penalty area compared to other goalkeepers in the big 5 leagues over the past 365 days
Yep. The De Gea problem isn't about opinions anymore, it's a fact he's a huge problem to the whole team.

Any average keeper who's just adequate at the different aspects of goalkeeping will be much better for the team than De Gea.
 

Isle

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Meslier or this Costa dude please, next summer. Would actually be shrewd business from us to get a number 2 this year (someone like Sommer), and a long-term number 1 in 2023, with De Gea leaving on a free.
What about Henderson?. He seems like a good keeper.
 

Bebestation

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De gea has won 1 Pl during his time here.

I feel like it says something.
 

MadDogg

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And we tried Henderson for quite a few games where he was a sweeper and all that other fancy nonsense and he was worse than De Gea.
In what way?

He had two or three poor games where he made a few mistakes. Otherwise he was solid, and played his part in our defence suddenly looking the most solid and organised that they have in years. Meanwhile De Gea has spent the last four years making more mistakes than Henderson did during that period, plus not bringing any of the benefits that a more all-round keeper did. De Gea isn't even a particularly good shot stopper anymore, bar a brief period at the start of last season.
 

CloneMC16

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In what way?

He had two or three poor games where he made a few mistakes. Otherwise he was solid, and played his part in our defence suddenly looking the most solid and organised that they have in years. Meanwhile De Gea has spent the last four years making more mistakes than Henderson did during that period, plus not bringing any of the benefits that a more all-round keeper did. De Gea isn't even a particularly good shot stopper anymore, bar a brief period at the start of last season.
Also, a keeper is going to make mistakes when he first starts playing for us. It's the hardest position to play. Any mistake you make is likely to cost a goal, and the pressure at this club is immense. We saw it against Liverpool. His doubters use that as a reason to never give him a chance again. De Gea made a tonne of mistakes in his first two seasons. Sir Alex did take him out of the team on occasion, but we mostly stuck with him. Henderson will make some mistakes, but his proactivity will outweigh them.
 

RopersReturn

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If we’ve already tried (and failed) to adapt Henderson into a sweeper keeper, might it be time to examine what’s going wrong with our GK coaching?
 

Sandikan

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De gea has won 1 Pl during his time here.

I feel like it says something.
How insanely good would he need to have been to win a title for us with the squads ad managers we've had over the last decade though?
He had some near super human seasons in there as it was.
 

TrustInJanuzaj

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We currently have the same problem that Liverpool had.

Liverpool needed a top quality defender which they got in Vvd. We haven't yet got that.

Then they needed a replace their goal keeper. The GK was a blind spot for them as it is a blind spot for us right now.

Till we sort it out, we are not going to be a top club again.
We have loads of top class defenders. They just get let down by the keeper behind them and the midfield in front of them. If Varane isn’t top class then let’s all throw in the towel. Just contacts excuses made for De Gea.
 

TrustInJanuzaj

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And we tried Henderson for quite a few games where he was a sweeper and all that other fancy nonsense and he was worse than De Gea. When I said better than 99% of available keepers I meant his shot stopping in particular.
By every metric and to the eye Henderson was miles better than De Gea in that spell so I have no idea what you were watching. We conceded less goals, conceded less chances, looked more confident and assured and all it took was a change of keeper. Hendo did make some individual mistakes but De Gea does that anyway. We looked a miles better team with him in net and I don’t even think he’s truly the answer.
 

TrustInJanuzaj

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agree with the first one, but come on, the second one there’s no chance for De Gea to sweep on that goal.
Ffs really? It’s the exact same chance. Was pathetic goal keeping and almost entirely on de Gea. Of course Maguire got the blame…
 

Alemar

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Just wanted to add that United has a 100% succes rate with GKs bought from Brøndby.
Clearly that must mean something.
So are we going to bid for this Danish sensation? If he is as described in the article, he walks into our starting XI from day one
 

Lyng

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We have loads of top class defenders. They just get let down by the keeper behind them and the midfield in front of them. If Varane isn’t top class then let’s all throw in the towel. Just contacts excuses made for De Gea.
We have Varane. With Martinez its too early to tell. The rest arent good enough.
 

Lyng

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So are we going to bid for this Danish sensation? If he is as described in the article, he walks into our starting XI from day one
yeah he is a fantastic goalkeeper talent. In fact he should take the spot from Kasper for the national team in the world cup. He would displace De Gea right away.
And he should be available for a decent price at his current age.

It makes a ton of sense. Which is why it wont happen
 

Alemar

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yeah he is a fantastic goalkeeper talent. In fact he should take the spot from Kasper for the national team in the world cup. He would displace De Gea right away.
And he should be available for a decent price at his current age.

It makes a ton of sense. Which is why it wont happen
If he is attainable for like 15m, we need to get him now, till the end of this transfer window.
 

LawCharltonBest

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Not suggesting he could replace De Gea long term obviously, but how about Keylor Navas for a season?
 

MadDogg

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If we’ve already tried (and failed) to adapt Henderson into a sweeper keeper, might it be time to examine what’s going wrong with our GK coaching?
Henderson is a sweeper keeper in the sense that he's more than happy to come out and act as a sweeper. It's just the quality of his passing and kicking when he does come out that is average (perhaps even below average). It can hopefully be improved to some extent but it probably won't be a huge improvement, in the same sense that McTominay can't be turned into Scholes. Although it should be noted that Henderson does have good quality with his throws, and sets up quite a few counter-attacks that way as he's normally looking for opportunities the instant he gets the ball in his hands.

Pope is a good example of someone who is quite similar in that aspect. Loves coming out and acting as a sweeper, but he just doesn't have the quality to truly take advantage of it. Still can't believe that Newcastle got him for only £10 million.