He'd probably swerve off the road and into a ditch.Imagine the meltdown on here if Loris Karius rolled into Carrington
Potential De Gea Replacements
- Thread starter FootyGirl88
- Start date
Oblak isn't the only keeper that can replace him.
When De Gea was out the team for a few weeks a few years back, Romero ended up getting terrible criticism despite being trusted beforehand. Romero is a terrific number 2, but that's all he is. I wouldn't want him starting for a whole season as number 1. Henderson is too young and too much of a responsibility to be the number 1 at United. I get the saying to trust the younger player but that's mainly for the attacking positions. Let him prove himself in the Prem next season on loan at Sheffield United before looking to bring him back here.
If Oblak is attainable then go for him. If not, Onana is a decent option.
If Oblak is attainable then go for him. If not, Onana is a decent option.
If he doesn't sign a new contract the club should find a sweeper keeper even if is inferior to De Gea as shot stopper. I have no idea who could be tbh. Look at Bayern, Liverpool, City, Barcelona. The keepers in those sides are involved in recycling the playing all the time.
Teams will struggle to have possession without a sweeper keeper these days. Unless you have really top wc full backs and midfielders what would be much more expensive.
Teams will struggle to have possession without a sweeper keeper these days. Unless you have really top wc full backs and midfielders what would be much more expensive.
I wouldnt mind giving Romero a chance next season with Henderson or Pereira as back ups. Romero would have 2-3 good years left in him if managed correctly. Romero has been class ever since he joined United. He's too good to be a back up and we have never heard him complain about it (Maybe its because of the money). Whenever he's played, he has hardly put a foot wrong. Maybe not as good as De gea and Oblak when they are at their peaks but I would only take Oblak if atletico is open to a straight swap deal. If we have to pay in excess of 30mill for Oblak, i would rather have Romero. But knowing Woodward, we would probably give them De Gea + 100mill for Oblak. If De Gea leaves, and we go into the market immediately for one, other clubs would know we are desperate for a GK and would probably charge us a premium.
However, I cant see De Gea going back to Spain unless the big 3 in Spain managed to offload any of their keepers. The only one that looks probable to leave is Courtois. Even then, Real would have a potential problem with Navas. Would he or De Gea be willing to sit on the bench or go to Real and risk atletico fans hating him? Barca seems happy with Ter Stegen as their first choice and atletico might seem as a probable destination as well but I would consider atletico to be in the same category as spurs, the kind where they would be challenging for the title year in year out and maybe with the odd league title win in 10 years. Would De Gea want to go to atletico where silverware would be limited too? Not entirely sure about that but im sure he still has feelings for them and furthermore its in Madrid.
If silverware is at the top of his priority, i could see him heading to Juve or PSG only. He would walk straight into the first team at both clubs. Both are also spending big on CL ambitions and are also virtually guaranteed domestic silverware for at least the next 2-3 years.
However, I cant see De Gea going back to Spain unless the big 3 in Spain managed to offload any of their keepers. The only one that looks probable to leave is Courtois. Even then, Real would have a potential problem with Navas. Would he or De Gea be willing to sit on the bench or go to Real and risk atletico fans hating him? Barca seems happy with Ter Stegen as their first choice and atletico might seem as a probable destination as well but I would consider atletico to be in the same category as spurs, the kind where they would be challenging for the title year in year out and maybe with the odd league title win in 10 years. Would De Gea want to go to atletico where silverware would be limited too? Not entirely sure about that but im sure he still has feelings for them and furthermore its in Madrid.
If silverware is at the top of his priority, i could see him heading to Juve or PSG only. He would walk straight into the first team at both clubs. Both are also spending big on CL ambitions and are also virtually guaranteed domestic silverware for at least the next 2-3 years.
if De Gea is still stalling for a 400k a week contract then just keep him until the end of next season and let him go for free. the most we might get for him this summer is around 40million and we need to add at least another 40million to get someone like Oblak in.
it is vital for us to keep the wage structure intact, we cannot afford to offer all of our current players 300k to 400k a week contract extension because no one deserves that at this moment. what a expensive mistake we made with Sanchez
keep De Gea for next season, let Dean Henderson stay with SU for another season and we might not need to spend on a capable replacement in 2 summers time.
it is vital for us to keep the wage structure intact, we cannot afford to offer all of our current players 300k to 400k a week contract extension because no one deserves that at this moment. what a expensive mistake we made with Sanchez
keep De Gea for next season, let Dean Henderson stay with SU for another season and we might not need to spend on a capable replacement in 2 summers time.
1) Romero is better than foster by a mile.
2) Henderson is a young, talented lad who knows that Romero won’t be in his prime for too long now.
Romero has more than earned a try at being our number 1 should DDG go. He has never let us down when called upon.
Romero should be given a shot. Always been dependable. If the club do decide to seek an external replacement, then Timo Horn or Oblak would be good options.
It's gonna be romero and Henderson. Woodward will want to signal that no goalkeeper is worth what de gea is asking by having the backup keeper come in and do a fine job.
Heaton, Romero or Schmeichel
More important to upgrade our back 4. In desperate need of a top class CB.
More important to upgrade our back 4. In desperate need of a top class CB.
I don’t agree, Romero has only played one season in Serie A, rest of his career has been a backup or at a lower level. No guarantee he could be a starter at any team in the top half.
Henderson would rather play another season at Sheffield Utd, he’s already asked to go back, than sit on our bench.
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Yes please...
Oblak would be the obvious choice if attainable. Whoever identifies goalkeepers at Atletico really knows their stuff by the way. Courtois, De Gea and Oblak all in the last decade.
Romero.
What's he like with his feet, Oblak?
Why this obsession with Oblak when he is going to cost a record fee, and when we desperately need to revamp our back 4, our midfield and our front 3.
Insane, Oblak is elite but at that price it isn't worth it.
120mil for a keeper who isn't even that exceptional with the ball at his feet sounds absolutely insane.
Chelsea have just bought a no name as Kepa for 70m and people are surprised Oblak has a clause of 120m ? Not to mention money is pretty much the only thing we can offer any upcoming player. We can't offer title challenging or trophies, just money.
Instead of buying the best players in the world for insane prices, why don't we let our scouts identify some talent.
If De Gea leaves we will promote Romero or Henderson. No way are we buying a replacement stopper when we have two decent goalkeepers already at the club.
Play Romero and save money for someone else.
Timo Horn has turned into shite, sadly. Get Nübel from Schalke, young and very promising before Bayern shows up again, could be too late already
That would be too much work.
Oblak is his closest peer. Can’t see De Gea making up more than 70% of his few though. That said, and I know people don’t like to sell academy prospects - but if Henderson impresses on loan in the PL with Sheffield next season, we could probably easily sell him for £30m+ too amidst the inevitable hype that would surround him at the time. So the two of those together would go some way to making up Oblak’s fee.
Alternatively we could try him or Romero in goal. Or go for the glamour signing of Donnarumma - whose clause is €20m less than Oblak’s I believe.
Alternatively we could try him or Romero in goal. Or go for the glamour signing of Donnarumma - whose clause is €20m less than Oblak’s I believe.
Also Romero isn't good enough to be #1 so we need to leave that idea alone.
I'd be happy with either of these two:
Handanovic/Romero/Someone in the same bracket for a season and Henderson at Sheffield on loan.
The season after, see Henderson's development and decide from there.
Basically, the majority of our outfield needs change, GK should be our last priority.
Handanovic/Romero/Someone in the same bracket for a season and Henderson at Sheffield on loan.
The season after, see Henderson's development and decide from there.
Basically, the majority of our outfield needs change, GK should be our last priority.
Are you serious?
I was being sarcastic..
Tough crowd
Dean Henderson
It used to take a decent bit of footballing knowledge or an ability to look beyond shot-stopping to notice that David De Gea might be overrated. Surely now though even his biggest fans must have doubts that he's the man to build our defence around and get us back to the top level.
I personally think giving him a new contract would be a massive mistake.
Let me attempt to avoid the usual accusations first of all by pointing out that this nothing personal against him, it's not an agenda, it's not a wind up and it's not me saying 'I told u so'.
I have no problem at all with De Gea's personality or professionalism, he seems like a really decent, down to earth lad, and if some of the other players had the same attitude then we'd be in a much better place.
This is purely a critique of his footballing ability and nothing else.
This is a passionate Man Utd fan who is giving an honest opinion on why I think De Gea was/is so overrated in the first place and why I think it's our number one priority to move him on NOW (that's if anyone else wants him at this point).
I have been saying ever since we signed De Gea that he's just not that good.
In his first season at least, that actually was the general opinion on him.
We conceded so many goals in his first season from crosses and set-pieces because he simply wasn't commanding enough in coming out and claiming crosses/set-pieces and wasn't vocal enough in organising the back four.
I'll be honest, I hadn't seen much of him playing for Atletico in Spain but, at this point, I was concerned that maybe he just wasn't cut out for the physicality of the Premier league.
Alex Ferguson obviously agreed as he was constantly taking him in and out of the side (unfortunately his replacement at this point, Lindergard wasn't much better).
In his second season, he undoubtedly got better, however it wouldn't have been that hard to improve on his first season.
In fact, I honestly think this improvement was slightly exaggerated, we still conceded over 40 league goals in this season, it's not like it was down to our solid defence that we won the league, it was mostly down to the signing of Robin Van Persie and us just going out and out-scoring teams.
However, the feel good factor of winning the league, combined with a 'slight' improvement masked over our continuing problems in defence and overhyped our keeper.
The Moyes and Van Gaal eras, now this is where the 'hype and over-rating' went into overdrive.
The Moyes era was that bad (not blaming De Gea for this BTW, Moyes was a disaster in his own right), and we went from perennial champions to a mid-table side practically over night, that literally the only good thing we had to cling onto that was that our keeper made the odd world class save.
The fact is, we had enjoyed almost 20 years of success, during which our keepers never really had to make that many saves, (although Schmeichel or VDS would have been much more capable of doing so anyway even if they had of been IMO) so this was all new territory for most fans.
We were watching our team get totally outclassed on an almost weekley basis now that us fans were coming away with no other positives apart from De Gea making the odd decent save (most of which were largely irrelevant as we didn't win anyway).
As I said, I honestly think this was the start of the 'hype and over-rating', because despite making a few great saves there was still no major improvements in equally important aspects of goal-keeping such as, as I said, being vocal/organising, coming out for crosses, distribution or coming out of his line. To this day, he still hasn't really improved on any of this.
A side note at this point, all throughout this time and since, I have tried, to no avail, to point out a quite unbelievable habit he has of sometimes not even bothering to attempt to save shots at all, instead choosing to simply watch the ball fly past him into the net (sometimes wide or over thankfully) before throwing his arms up in frustration as if to say 'what could I do?'.
Em, try and save it, maybe?
Fair enough, there will be the odd shot that you never had a chance at saving but you could at least try, no?
Plus, if you're the best keeper in the world, as people keep telling me he is, then surely he actually might save a few.
So, just to be clear, despite his reputation steadily growing over the Moyes/Van Gaal era, I personally still felt he had too many other flaws in his game to be considered 'top level' and certainly not 'the undisputed best' as many claim.
The inability to sense danger and come out of his line to clear or at least narrow the angle on 1 v 1s became really apparent to me during the Van Gaal era.
Van Gaal initially kept trying to play a high defensive line which meant we were often getting caught out with one long ball over the top.
Im not solely blaming De Gea here either BTW, it was probably a bad tactic anyway by Van Gaal but it didn't exactly help matters when De Gea was totally inept at sensing this danger and often just stayed rooted to his line.
Watch the highlights of the infamous 4-0 Mk Dons or 5-3 Leicester defeats for a few of the many examples of this.
His recent performance for Spain against Croatia in the nations league suggests he hasn't improved at all in this regard.
Again though, throughout both of these eras, there was little else to shout about aside from the odd decent De Gea save.
The Mourinhio era.
Not much chance of a high-line or attacking football here so this is probably when he was at his peak for us.
Whenever we were camped into our own box playing 'park the bus' football, then yes, this suited him because he didn't have to come out for crosses or off his line as much.
Plenty of clean sheets in this era but surely a big factor in that was how defensive we were playing, so is that what we should go back to then? Accept that we cannot take risks or press high because our keeper is so inept at coming off his line and reading the danger?
I personally would just rather try another keeper to be honest than watch those Mourinhio tactics ever again.
So these 4/5 seasons when he was our talisman, our player of the year and so on and so on.
What exactly did we achieve apart from mediocrity?
Is that his level then?
The biggest thing we did do in this era was win the Europa lg (and more importantly claim a champions league place because of it) and he had no part in that.
Even during the David Moyes era, he let us down at the most crucial moment with a horrific mistake against Sunderland in the league Cup semi final, we were seconds away from the final and he gifted Phil Bardsley an equaliser with an absolute howler.
I personally don't care that much about the league Cup and I'm not for one second suggesting that this was the sole reason David Moyes failed, but still, we would have played Man City in the final and who knows what could have happened.
It certainly would have been a huge moment for David Moyes, having never won a trophy, but De Gea denied him that by bottling it when it mattered.
This season then, when, for the first time since the Ferguson era, we were gaining momentum, playing good attacking football again and then boom, all that momentum was lost when Granit Xhaka had the audacity to put a slight bit of swerve on a shot and De Gea decided to move out of the road of it.
Much like the Wolves game that followed, and the game yesterday, we were bossing the match when he made those howlers, and even one win in any of those would have seen us comfortably in the top 4 now.
We would be lauding Ole as a genius, and now because of those individual errors people are saying he's out of his depth.
For not dropping him, maybe he is to be honest.
Even today, all im hearing in the 'mainstream' media is how Ole was right to stick by him the last few weeks.
How exactly?
He's stuck by him the last few weeks and his individual errors have cost us points in massive games so surely it's now a fact that he was wrong to stick by him, and it's too late now anyway, top 4 is gone.
In these big games then the last few weeks, arguably some of the biggest we've had in years, when we were playing at the elite level (Barcelona) and also being given the chance to return to the elite level by getting top 4, he's bottled it.
This was the time to be our leader, our talisman and he wasn't up to it, in fact he was so bad, he literally cost us the games, how is that acceptable?
You can clearly throw in the world cup with Spain in the summer also as another elite level balls up.
Ive heard all the excuses over the years but this latest one about the contract is utterly ridiculous by the way.
Even if his head is all over the place due to the contract issue (which there is no actual evidence for apart from the media telling us that's what's happening), how is that a viable excuse?
If he can't put that to one side, until the end of the season and concentrate on the job at hand, i.e. getting us top 4, isn't that a massive concern rather than a viable excuse?
To be clear, I'm not trying to say that the keeper is our only problem, not at all, but I am suggesting that it's our biggest problem right now.
I say that because, when it comes to the other problems in the squad, which for me, is average players such as Young, Smalling, Jones, Fred, Lingard and, more often than not, Pogba and Lukaku, people are aware of how ineffective they are.
When any of the above have a bad game, they get criticism for it (rightly) but when it comes to De Gea, all he gets his excuses made for him and, unbelievably, sympathy now because he's not getting paid enough apparently. Why is he excused? surely De Gea has to shoulder the blame like everybody else who underperformed?
If it's our defence that's a big problem right now then isn't he part of that defence?
Obviously I accept that perhaps our defenders are just that bad, I totally accept that that's a possibility however surely the debate has to be had now that De Gea isn't exactly helping them.
Can it just be a coincidence that literally every defender we have signed, since De Gea became our keeper, has struggled?
All of these defenders were decent prospects when we signed them, where they not?
Even Smalling and Jones were highly rated young defenders when we bought them.
So, are we just accepting then that it is indeed pure coincidence that, to a man, all of the defensive players we've signed in the last 8-9 years have been bad players?
That they've all had successfull careers up until we've signed them (and in some instances like Michael Keane and Daily Blind, after they've left also) but then they have all just coincidentally became bad defenders the moment they signed for us, pretty big coincidence if that is the case.
Another reason I consider this to be our biggest concern is because, as I have said along, it's not even De Gea's shot stopping that is the issue here, its all those other aspects of his game that's the main problem. So, even if he does get his confidence back and actually manages to save a shot (imagine) then, so what? All those other weaknesses are still there and, just like his shot stopping, aren't going to get any better with age.
For a while I just gave up trying to point this out because I got tired of hearing the same excuses, but the last few weeks have really just taken the piss, and, at such a crucial moment in the clubs history, with this rebuild coming.
I'm asking our fans to have a long hard think about this, do you really feel as though De Gea can be relied upon to build a solid defence around for the next five/six seasons and take us from mid-table mediocrity to mixing it with the elite again?
Evidence so far would suggest he's not, but knowing our club I can pretty much predict what is going on to happen.....
We will probably beat Huddersfield and Cardiff and De Gea will make a decent save and, despite the fact that's its too little too late, he will be hoisted back up there and proclaimed to be the best in the world again, then follows another five years of mediocrity with our £500,000 a week liability leading the defence.
Is it any wonder we're becoming the laughing stock of the football World?
When our fans, the mainstream media, our players and even our manager, respond to every mistake the keeper makes by repeating that there is still 'no question' he is the best keeper in the world and 'no question' that he should be starting, then I consider that a pretty big problem.
For me, the questions have always been there, and are now more relevant than ever.
This is such a crucial summer for us and I think our fans need to properly assess the situation before casually throwing about phrases like 'unquestionable' and 'best in the world', in my opinion, its precisely that sort of complacency that has led us to the mediocrity we now find ourselves in.
I personally think giving him a new contract would be a massive mistake.
Let me attempt to avoid the usual accusations first of all by pointing out that this nothing personal against him, it's not an agenda, it's not a wind up and it's not me saying 'I told u so'.
I have no problem at all with De Gea's personality or professionalism, he seems like a really decent, down to earth lad, and if some of the other players had the same attitude then we'd be in a much better place.
This is purely a critique of his footballing ability and nothing else.
This is a passionate Man Utd fan who is giving an honest opinion on why I think De Gea was/is so overrated in the first place and why I think it's our number one priority to move him on NOW (that's if anyone else wants him at this point).
I have been saying ever since we signed De Gea that he's just not that good.
In his first season at least, that actually was the general opinion on him.
We conceded so many goals in his first season from crosses and set-pieces because he simply wasn't commanding enough in coming out and claiming crosses/set-pieces and wasn't vocal enough in organising the back four.
I'll be honest, I hadn't seen much of him playing for Atletico in Spain but, at this point, I was concerned that maybe he just wasn't cut out for the physicality of the Premier league.
Alex Ferguson obviously agreed as he was constantly taking him in and out of the side (unfortunately his replacement at this point, Lindergard wasn't much better).
In his second season, he undoubtedly got better, however it wouldn't have been that hard to improve on his first season.
In fact, I honestly think this improvement was slightly exaggerated, we still conceded over 40 league goals in this season, it's not like it was down to our solid defence that we won the league, it was mostly down to the signing of Robin Van Persie and us just going out and out-scoring teams.
However, the feel good factor of winning the league, combined with a 'slight' improvement masked over our continuing problems in defence and overhyped our keeper.
The Moyes and Van Gaal eras, now this is where the 'hype and over-rating' went into overdrive.
The Moyes era was that bad (not blaming De Gea for this BTW, Moyes was a disaster in his own right), and we went from perennial champions to a mid-table side practically over night, that literally the only good thing we had to cling onto that was that our keeper made the odd world class save.
The fact is, we had enjoyed almost 20 years of success, during which our keepers never really had to make that many saves, (although Schmeichel or VDS would have been much more capable of doing so anyway even if they had of been IMO) so this was all new territory for most fans.
We were watching our team get totally outclassed on an almost weekley basis now that us fans were coming away with no other positives apart from De Gea making the odd decent save (most of which were largely irrelevant as we didn't win anyway).
As I said, I honestly think this was the start of the 'hype and over-rating', because despite making a few great saves there was still no major improvements in equally important aspects of goal-keeping such as, as I said, being vocal/organising, coming out for crosses, distribution or coming out of his line. To this day, he still hasn't really improved on any of this.
A side note at this point, all throughout this time and since, I have tried, to no avail, to point out a quite unbelievable habit he has of sometimes not even bothering to attempt to save shots at all, instead choosing to simply watch the ball fly past him into the net (sometimes wide or over thankfully) before throwing his arms up in frustration as if to say 'what could I do?'.
Em, try and save it, maybe?
Fair enough, there will be the odd shot that you never had a chance at saving but you could at least try, no?
Plus, if you're the best keeper in the world, as people keep telling me he is, then surely he actually might save a few.
So, just to be clear, despite his reputation steadily growing over the Moyes/Van Gaal era, I personally still felt he had too many other flaws in his game to be considered 'top level' and certainly not 'the undisputed best' as many claim.
The inability to sense danger and come out of his line to clear or at least narrow the angle on 1 v 1s became really apparent to me during the Van Gaal era.
Van Gaal initially kept trying to play a high defensive line which meant we were often getting caught out with one long ball over the top.
Im not solely blaming De Gea here either BTW, it was probably a bad tactic anyway by Van Gaal but it didn't exactly help matters when De Gea was totally inept at sensing this danger and often just stayed rooted to his line.
Watch the highlights of the infamous 4-0 Mk Dons or 5-3 Leicester defeats for a few of the many examples of this.
His recent performance for Spain against Croatia in the nations league suggests he hasn't improved at all in this regard.
Again though, throughout both of these eras, there was little else to shout about aside from the odd decent De Gea save.
The Mourinhio era.
Not much chance of a high-line or attacking football here so this is probably when he was at his peak for us.
Whenever we were camped into our own box playing 'park the bus' football, then yes, this suited him because he didn't have to come out for crosses or off his line as much.
Plenty of clean sheets in this era but surely a big factor in that was how defensive we were playing, so is that what we should go back to then? Accept that we cannot take risks or press high because our keeper is so inept at coming off his line and reading the danger?
I personally would just rather try another keeper to be honest than watch those Mourinhio tactics ever again.
So these 4/5 seasons when he was our talisman, our player of the year and so on and so on.
What exactly did we achieve apart from mediocrity?
Is that his level then?
The biggest thing we did do in this era was win the Europa lg (and more importantly claim a champions league place because of it) and he had no part in that.
Even during the David Moyes era, he let us down at the most crucial moment with a horrific mistake against Sunderland in the league Cup semi final, we were seconds away from the final and he gifted Phil Bardsley an equaliser with an absolute howler.
I personally don't care that much about the league Cup and I'm not for one second suggesting that this was the sole reason David Moyes failed, but still, we would have played Man City in the final and who knows what could have happened.
It certainly would have been a huge moment for David Moyes, having never won a trophy, but De Gea denied him that by bottling it when it mattered.
This season then, when, for the first time since the Ferguson era, we were gaining momentum, playing good attacking football again and then boom, all that momentum was lost when Granit Xhaka had the audacity to put a slight bit of swerve on a shot and De Gea decided to move out of the road of it.
Much like the Wolves game that followed, and the game yesterday, we were bossing the match when he made those howlers, and even one win in any of those would have seen us comfortably in the top 4 now.
We would be lauding Ole as a genius, and now because of those individual errors people are saying he's out of his depth.
For not dropping him, maybe he is to be honest.
Even today, all im hearing in the 'mainstream' media is how Ole was right to stick by him the last few weeks.
How exactly?
He's stuck by him the last few weeks and his individual errors have cost us points in massive games so surely it's now a fact that he was wrong to stick by him, and it's too late now anyway, top 4 is gone.
In these big games then the last few weeks, arguably some of the biggest we've had in years, when we were playing at the elite level (Barcelona) and also being given the chance to return to the elite level by getting top 4, he's bottled it.
This was the time to be our leader, our talisman and he wasn't up to it, in fact he was so bad, he literally cost us the games, how is that acceptable?
You can clearly throw in the world cup with Spain in the summer also as another elite level balls up.
Ive heard all the excuses over the years but this latest one about the contract is utterly ridiculous by the way.
Even if his head is all over the place due to the contract issue (which there is no actual evidence for apart from the media telling us that's what's happening), how is that a viable excuse?
If he can't put that to one side, until the end of the season and concentrate on the job at hand, i.e. getting us top 4, isn't that a massive concern rather than a viable excuse?
To be clear, I'm not trying to say that the keeper is our only problem, not at all, but I am suggesting that it's our biggest problem right now.
I say that because, when it comes to the other problems in the squad, which for me, is average players such as Young, Smalling, Jones, Fred, Lingard and, more often than not, Pogba and Lukaku, people are aware of how ineffective they are.
When any of the above have a bad game, they get criticism for it (rightly) but when it comes to De Gea, all he gets his excuses made for him and, unbelievably, sympathy now because he's not getting paid enough apparently. Why is he excused? surely De Gea has to shoulder the blame like everybody else who underperformed?
If it's our defence that's a big problem right now then isn't he part of that defence?
Obviously I accept that perhaps our defenders are just that bad, I totally accept that that's a possibility however surely the debate has to be had now that De Gea isn't exactly helping them.
Can it just be a coincidence that literally every defender we have signed, since De Gea became our keeper, has struggled?
All of these defenders were decent prospects when we signed them, where they not?
Even Smalling and Jones were highly rated young defenders when we bought them.
So, are we just accepting then that it is indeed pure coincidence that, to a man, all of the defensive players we've signed in the last 8-9 years have been bad players?
That they've all had successfull careers up until we've signed them (and in some instances like Michael Keane and Daily Blind, after they've left also) but then they have all just coincidentally became bad defenders the moment they signed for us, pretty big coincidence if that is the case.
Another reason I consider this to be our biggest concern is because, as I have said along, it's not even De Gea's shot stopping that is the issue here, its all those other aspects of his game that's the main problem. So, even if he does get his confidence back and actually manages to save a shot (imagine) then, so what? All those other weaknesses are still there and, just like his shot stopping, aren't going to get any better with age.
For a while I just gave up trying to point this out because I got tired of hearing the same excuses, but the last few weeks have really just taken the piss, and, at such a crucial moment in the clubs history, with this rebuild coming.
I'm asking our fans to have a long hard think about this, do you really feel as though De Gea can be relied upon to build a solid defence around for the next five/six seasons and take us from mid-table mediocrity to mixing it with the elite again?
Evidence so far would suggest he's not, but knowing our club I can pretty much predict what is going on to happen.....
We will probably beat Huddersfield and Cardiff and De Gea will make a decent save and, despite the fact that's its too little too late, he will be hoisted back up there and proclaimed to be the best in the world again, then follows another five years of mediocrity with our £500,000 a week liability leading the defence.
Is it any wonder we're becoming the laughing stock of the football World?
When our fans, the mainstream media, our players and even our manager, respond to every mistake the keeper makes by repeating that there is still 'no question' he is the best keeper in the world and 'no question' that he should be starting, then I consider that a pretty big problem.
For me, the questions have always been there, and are now more relevant than ever.
This is such a crucial summer for us and I think our fans need to properly assess the situation before casually throwing about phrases like 'unquestionable' and 'best in the world', in my opinion, its precisely that sort of complacency that has led us to the mediocrity we now find ourselves in.
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Every time Romero has been used instead of De Gea he has looked perfectly competent. Let’s save some money for a change and use it where we need it ie a centre back.
It's gonna be Romero, with Henderson promoted. And honestly, I'd be fine with that. Get Grant off the books, and let's have a proper look at Henderson in the cup games.
What do people think of Walter Benitez (Nice) and Mike Maignan (Lille)? I quite like them, but I don't think I've seen enough of both to be sure about them.
Was just reading about his impressive season.
Between him and Romero, if DDG leaves, we’d be fine. Spend the money on the defence for starters.
Grant is just a backup backup, see no problem having him as third choice.
I haven't seen much of Henderson, but from what i read, he's very promising.
I'd be happy enough with those 3 for next year, spending 120(€/£) million on a goalkeeper is just mental, even in today's market. Rather use that money on a better defense, and we'll be better off.
Good post Kerry, and you're spot on as far as I'm concerned.