Objectively, where do you rank David De Gea as a goalkeeper?

[Welbeckham]

He’s way too passive as a goalkeeper, doesn’t do any work outside his shot-stopping, so his decline in that particular regard has made him a liability. Compared to the previous two seasons, he has been less terrible this season, but has still cost us on important occasions.

He hasn’t been a top 5 GK in the league for years, let alone in the world. Currently Henderson isn’t consistently better than him, but I think calling out Henderson now is a bit harsh, considering what De Gea has gotten away with since 2018.

 

[Bebestation]

He holds his defenders back.

 

[Dan_F]

Agree 100%. In general, goalkeeping mistakes have risen over the years. Look at Alisson who almost gifted us a goal yesterday, but we have crucified De Gea’s errors to such an extent that we have now have a mid-table goalie starting for us. In yesteryears, we were able to get away with playing Lindegaard or so. Not anymore. Yesterday, Henderson was infuriating like so many other players.

Ederson and Allison have both made numerous mistakes like that, but you have the upside of playing that kind of style of keeper for the other 95% of the time. With David, unfortunately he makes clangers, but has no upside in terms of ability on the ball or commanding the area.

The first thing we need to do is get a better centre back and defensive coach. That much has shown at Chelsea. Mendy is a decent keeper, nothing special in terms of shot stopping, but the defence usually protects him well. Think back to the Roma game last week, a better keeper does nothing much to help.

 

[TheLord]

Bang average.
He was particularly good in one facet of the game: short-range shot-stopping using his feet. He is still good at that. His organisational skills are non-existent, he doesn’t distribute the ball good enough, he rarely comes off his line these days, he is not vocal enough — bang average.

There are at least half a dozen better goalkeepers in the PL at the moment.

 

[Oranges038]

Better than Henderson...and that's all that matters.

He's not though, not right now. He had a bad game last night but De Gea has been throwing away goals for about 3 seasons

Henderson has more clean sheets in half as many games and the team concedes less goals per game with him in goal, defence looks more assured and plays those extra few yards higher because they know he's there to sweep up. From that and watching games, you can see he has to be better at something than De Gea right now.

De Gea was once one of the best in the world, now he's a shadow of that player. Because his one outstanding ability has gone down you realise how very average he is in every other department.

 

[Wonder Pigeon]

I'd say his body of work in the Premier League during that peak 2014-2018 period is the best the league has seen, particularly in his sustained consistency of match-winning performances. But while others aged gracefully, his sharp drop-off and his failure to translate that level beyond the domestic game to international tournaments affects his legacy both within England and particularly elsewhere. International football isn't absolutely decisive in that way, but United's limited role in the Champions League post Ferguson means he has left little imprint in the European game leaving more at stake on how he performed with Spain. When you compare him with the all-time goalkeeping greats (which is where he should be compared given his ability), just about all have impressive international careers (Buffon, Zoff, Shilton, Jennings, Dasayev, Yashin) or inspired major tournament showings (Schmeichel, Kahn, Toldo, Maier, Mazurkiewicz, Preud'homme, Chilavert) to their names.

You'd wonder if De Gea will end up falling in line in the public memory closer to a keeper like Handanovic, who had a kind of comparible career in a different order. Similarly has a stellar personal record at league level, not a lot of honours to show for his career(just picked up a league late on while De Gea got one in early doors), and a contemporary at national level who overshadows him a bit (Casillas before De Gea, Oblak after Handanovic).

 

[Stack]

At one point I thought he was the best there was but has fallen away in the last couple of seasons. I thought by the time he finished he would be seen as our greatest ever keeper. Now however every time I watch the Leeds keeper I think he is better than David.

 

[RedPed]

He's not though, not right now. He had a bad game last night but De Gea has been throwing away goals for about 3 seasons

Henderson has more clean sheets in half as many games and the team concedes less goals per game with him in goal, defence looks more assured and plays those extra few yards higher because they know he's there to sweep up. From that and watching games, you can see he has to be better at something than De Gea right now.

De Gea was once one of the best in the world, now he's a shadow of that player. Because his one outstanding ability has gone down you realise how very average he is in every other department.

Read the the thread title again "Where do you rank David de Gea...". It's about opinions and personally for me De Gea is miles better than Henderson. Brighton's goalie has the same stats as Henderson so we might as well swap De Gea for him. Fine if you rate Henderson right now. He's just the flavour of the month. Even Romero was better than him. Still don't understand why Solskjaer binned him.

 

[balaks]

He is a good keeper but nothing special now. You guys are seriously overpaying on his wages wow.

 

[Oranges038]

Read the the thread title again "Where do you rank David de Gea...". It's about opinions and personally for me De Gea is miles better than Henderson. Brighton's goalie has the same stats as Henderson so we might as well swap De Gea for him. Fine if you rate Henderson right now. He's just the flavour of the month. Even Romero was better than him. Still don't understand why Solskjaer binned him.

I did read it. You said he is better than Henderson. Team performance and defence is much better with Henderson in goal. That much is clear. It might also be better with Romero but he was screwed over last year and rightly threw it back at them for being treated poorly. I don't know why they treated him like that, it was poor form given how well he had played up to that point and was clearly playing better than De Gea.

De Gea was binned because he was letting in soft goals and was clearly being targeted on set pieces as being weak. He's stuck to his line and this impacts how high the defenders can play and ultimately how high the team can press and win the ball back. Which in turns impacts how quickly and effectively they can turnover the ball and turn it into atracks.

Right now, De Gea is not better than Henderson. He's become bang average, from being one of the best in the world to not even being one of the best in the league. It's sad to see given how good he was. But that is the truth. Objectively I rank him as being average, not in the top 5 in the league and probably not even in the top 10.

 

[Dancfc]

A few years ago there were favourable comparisons with Van De Sar which seemed crazy to me.

As a shot stopper he's incredible but as an all round package the Dutchman was streets ahead in my opinion, an unsung hero behind your Rio and Vidic partnership.

 

[GueRed]

At United the last 40 years:

1. Schmeichel. A proper GOAT not just at United
2. Van Der Sar. Legend
3. De Gea. WIll go down as a legend.

 

[PieCrust]

He failed to develop all of his weaker attributes; command of area, communication, distribution, courage / physicality. But being honest, at his peak, he was (and sort of still is) an amazing shot stopper that made up for all his weaker qualities. I think he was top 2 or 3 for a period of several years. But now as his reflexes begin to slow, he's not the same and it won't get any better. I find it disappointing that he was never able to significantly improve in any of his weaker areas, could have been an absolute monster.

He also seems to suffer from a lack of confidence. I don't really follow anything with the Spain national team, but it seems that his poor showings there have deflated him at the club level as well.

Not gonna lie, I was glad when the fax machine happened and we were able to keep him. Sure, it looks bad now, but I can only judge it based on my opinion at the time it happened.

Still, the real question remains, is he better than Henderson? I think so. Can Henderson develop? Almost assuredly. The GK next season is a tough choice. I'm not sure which way I would go if it had to be decided today.

 

[FootballHQ]

One of the world's best 3-4 years ago.

Not so much nowadays, makes the odd good reaction save still but seems so many more shots just beat him and end up in the net than used to.

I assume you want to let him go with the talk of Heaton coming back to you but Real Madrid won't be interested anymore and can't see PSG interested (seems they might want Lloris instead) so not sure what route there is for him considering the huge wages he's on.

 

[Pink Moon]

Ederson, Schmeichel and Pope are the ones I think are definitely better. I can see an argument for Martinez too. Meslier and Alisson are good but both make some horrific mistakes with the ball at their feet which needs to be taken into account when ranking. Lloris is about the same level.

 

[Thunderhead]

cracking keeper 3 years ago, genuinely one of the best in the world, possibly I just think he's gone a bit stale and probably needs a new challenge although alternatively he's done a Joe Hart and has gone to total dogshit (not that Hart was ever on De Gea level)

 

[Chesterlestreet]

A few years ago there were favourable comparisons with Van De Sar which seemed crazy to me.

Classic case of recency bias, etc.

And also a classic case of overrating shot stoppers. There isn't a single example in football history of a keeper whose only outstanding trait was shot stopping making it as a historically great player.

There's a very simply reason for that too: they never keep it up.

In theory, a keeper with De Gea's (prime) shot stopping ability could keep on getting away with having little else going for him (because of the amount of match winning saves he makes) - but in reality, this doesn't happen. As keepers get older, they get less explosive/athletic/fast...it's just not sustainable.

They have to add strings to their bow (if they don't have them already).

A former world class shot stopper who is not a defence leader, not a sweeper, not great in the area - and so forth - will look plain mediocre before too long.

 

[el3mel]

Currently top 5 in Premier League. There're not really that many great names in PL outside the top teams anyway.

 

[Klopper76]

His best years are probably behind him but there was a 3-4 year period where he was undoubtedly the best in the world in his position. He's definitely declined a fair bit but I think he's better than Henderson is currently.

It hasn't been a great season for keepers imo. Alisson has been very below par as well.

 

[Lux Thunder]

Never rated him as a world-class goalkeeper. His shot-stopping and reflexes were/are world-class, to be honest, but never looked to me as a complete package as he was weak in some basic areas of goalkeeping. His communication and commanding of the area were always questionable, he is attached to the goal-line too much for me and his distribution is not great either as we all know that it's a more and more important part of the modern game.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for his prime when he was saving our games, but certainly not a player who justifies that wage, bad decision.

 

[Andy_Cole]

The issue is his massive contract. We’d keep him for years to come I think if he was on £150k. He’s a decent keeper.

However his poor ability to come out for crosses and be a sweeper costs us goals so probably good he’s getting replaced.