What is this based on, though? De Gea was linked with a move to Madrid in the past, too — yet there were never any credible reports painting him as a locker-room nuisance (always put his head down and returned to his normal level once the waves of unrest had passed). As far as I can tell as an outsider, there are two major issues concerning David at this moment in time, and while they need to resolved, neither point to him being a malcontent:
- As the club POTY of 4 of the last 5 seasons, he justifiably feels that he should be compensated as well as our highest earners (specifically Sánchez: whose contributions to the club are dwarfed by De Gea). Most of us would feel the same in his position as a professional, especially considering he isn't actually winning a lot for all his heroics and impeccable form in recent seasons (relative to what he could have won with Madrid if he had left under Louis).
- First run of poor form since the early debacles under Fergie — however, form is temporary and class is permanent, at least in a proverbial sense, and he will recover. Yet the knives are out and tonnes of supporters have already turned on him, and there are snide and unsubstantiated allusions of him slacking because “his heart's not in it”...which is amusing in an ironic way because they expect unwavering loyalty from players who often treat football as a normal job, and accordingly form calculated decisions regarding their careers.
P.S. He has publicly apologized for the Everton defeat as well (yes, words don't mean much as De Gea himself points out,
but he always comes across as the type of character who takes a lot of pride in what he does and tends to give his all as a professional)...
Bolded part is very important.
Tl;dr, as you suspect, DDG is not one of the 'trouble makers'. He has an extremely particular/peculiar reason behind the current contract talk.
Right now there is very likely a schism between players who have the right attitude and several higher-profile players who do not, compounded by the latter group basing themselves on the 'came through the youth' claim with a bunch of players stuck in between in a complex venn diagram of personalities.
Rule of thumb roughly being: if SAF signed them they have unquestionable character, end of story. This includes the likes of Young and Jones. If SAF didn't and or he let them go, then it's case-by-case or in Pogba's case, on the extreme opposite of the spectrum. Regarding the case-by-case exceptions who are still at the club, we have Mata, Sanchez and Dalot to name a few. (Mentality-wise, Sanchez is fine. One would hope that it's obvious that he's giving his all whenever he's on the pitch.)
Pogba's mentality was exposed as soon as he signed and his wages revealed. I posted a couple of times regarding a unique foible of elite-level character with absolutely zero expectation that anyone on the caf would recognize or understand it, but what happens when an elite-level player with the 'right' attitude is that they take LESS money. We kind of saw it with Berbatov and his 'I had a bigger offer from City but lol' So as soon as it was revealed that Pogba signed at 290k p/w, everyone who knows about these things had it re-affirmed that he had the wrong mentality. As soon as you didn't see Pogba actively engaging the media about his 140k p/w wages and talking about 'you don't come here for the money' 'I would never disrespect the club's roots by coming for money' 'I was offered 290k p/w but with respect to Mr. Woodward I asked for less money because I'm here to help rebuild the club and anything else is not my business' etc - and those are the types of things you hear actual real top-level performers say when they take pay-cuts to join organizations that they believe in.
It's actually also related to what drove SAF's 'no value in the market' rhetoric (which is also a whole other kettle of fish as SAF was waging a one-man war against agent-power and inflating transfer fees on behalf of the entire footballing world.)
In the upper echelons of any profession, it's an extremely useful and effective barometer in judging a person's overall character: 'Being paid what I'm worth' vs that top-top-top-tier 'I don't give a shit about that'. To 99% of the world, the former looks fine and results in the 'he's our best player he should be paid that much/agents negotiate based on social-media and calculated image rights etc.' You get doctors, lawyers etc 'being paid what they're worth' and to the 98% of the population it looks fine. But to that elite 1%, the former is utterly, utterly riseable. And the true mechanics behind that sort of behavior is
literally impossible for the 99% and below to grasp, even though they can praise and recognize the end-result: 'Oh he took a pay-cut to join his boyhood club', etc. And that's where a club like this can run into problems if that tight margin is mismanaged.
Right now among the playing staff there are people who signed up to the club because it represented certain values (and of course because they'd be competitively paid) and newly signed members who are not singing from the same hymn sheet and who are making things worse when they re-up their contracts. DDG here (and Herrera TBF) is an exception because he's been put between a rock and a hard place due to Woodward: take lesser wages vs the diva/problem players the way his attitude/professionalism dictates vs the knowledge that he's in a position to combat the problem players by taking commensurate wages and establishing a top-position in the pecking order.
Same thing you'd see in any job. Put oneself in DDG's shoes. What do I do? I've been here since before these idiots prancing around like they own the place, signed by a man who I still deeply respect to do a particular job according to a certain standard and set of values. My choices are: a) try and send a message by taking less money, but everything I know says that will do nothing to combat the problematic players unless I make some sort of public statement, which I shouldn't have to do; that's upper management's job, and b) take similar or higher pay to try and leverage that towards a certain position of influence in the dressing room, but which goes against everything I signed up for in the first place.
It's a crazy choice.
I too worry that the English/British emphasis means a continuation of the 'jobs for the boys' approach which has stifled us for some years now (IMO, at least).
It's right for anyone to worry about this sort of 'favoritism'; but there's a chance Solskjaer is trying to re-create the 'British Core' to establish a 'why play anywhere else' mental element at the club. It's part common sense and part a holdover from when the club could hoover up UK talent to go toe-to-toe with their continental giants (before Chelsea/City changed things). The latter can definitely problematic with regards to a meritocracy if pursued blindly. But if it's done with a specific purpose, then it's harder to discuss, particularly in our current situation.
That being said, his hands are tied - as Mourinho's were - because of Woodward's wanton handling of contracts. That creates situations that would take novella-length posts to fully describe but which boil down to the fact that Woodward has created a culture of desperation at the club. That word 'desperation' might seem out of place to the average fan, and unfortunately, Einstein's famous quote notwithstanding there's no good way to explain it to anyone who doesn't understand it well innately.
His 'throwing money at the problem' creates a myriad of psychological issues within the organization - in this case, a footballing club - the outbranching tendrils of which we see expressed on the forums in the form of 'attitude problems', 'wage imbalance', etc.
It's a mess caused by Woodward. Everything - from 'are our scouts blind' to any managerial consideration to 're-establish a 'British/UK core' - comes from his desperate flailing and consequent allowing of a mercenarial element to creep into the club culture.
Regarding a relatively simple matter of 'establishing a British Core', this turns that simple matter of 'establishing a British core' into who's-being-paid-what-and-are-we-creating-another-narrative-based-on-passports. It puts extreme pressure on managers to try and juggle way more than they should have to.
