David De Gea Has Become Manchester United's Unmentionable Problem

Can the goalkeeper play the way Erik ten Hag wants him to?
08:00, 13 Aug 2022

Manchester United have so many issues at the moment but as they come up against Brentford this weekend, it is time to take a look at the man who has escaped criticism at Old Trafford, David de Gea. Their Spanish goalkeeper will share the pitch with his countryman David Raya, just two months after Raya was selected ahead of him in Spain’s Nations League squad. 

There’s a real chance De Gea could be left out of Spain’s World Cup squad altogether, and yet he has been seen as one of Manchester United’s most consistent performers over the last few years. He’s been named the club’s player of the year on a record four occasions and is now in his 11th season at Old Trafford.  

But he simply isn’t good enough with his feet to play for Erik ten Hag’s team, or flourish at the top of the modern game. Spain manager Luis Enrique has worked that out, so why haven’t United? 

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As a shot-stopping goalkeeper, De Gea is fine. Even though he makes spectacular saves, he is statistically average to good when it comes to shot-stopping. In Europe’s top five leagues, he ranks in the bottom 46th percentile over the past year for save percentage, but his post-shot expected goals minus goals allowed (PSxGA) is +0.12, which means he has stopped marginally more goals than expected to. In his last five seasons he has never conceded more goals from shots than he should, so you can see why he draws plaudits in that sense.

However, De Gea has some glaring weaknesses that are only going to be exaggerated under Ten Hag. This is a manager who loves to build from the back and play through the opposition’s press, but unfortunately for the Dutchman, he has a goalkeeper who simply can’t do that. He is well below average when it comes to distribution, which is a major factor as to why he has fallen down the pecking order for Spain. 

Over the past year, he is in the bottom 1% of goalkeepers when it comes to touches. United don’t and cannot play the ball back to their number one, because he is likely to make an error. Ten Hag will get him to be more involved, but that might not necessarily be a good thing. As you can see from the below graphic, published in March, De Gea is well out of his depth compared to Europe’s elite. 

He’s in the bottom 34% when it comes to accuracy of launches and his average distance of defensive actions places him in the bottom 33%. Basically, the Spaniard is not confident enough on the ball to play like Alisson or Ederson do, and United will suffer as a result. This particular issue wasn’t so much under the counter-attacking Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who defended deeper and caught teams on the break, but under the possession-based Ten Hag, we will see issues. 

But although his distribution will hamper him, as we saw in the home defeat to Brighton, he has other major flaws. For the opener, he was caught dallying at his near post while his failure to push the ball away from danger allowed Pascal Gross to score his second. Neither of them will go down as a direct error leading to a goal, but he could have done better on both occasions.

Statistically, we haven’t even got to the worst part yet. De Gea only stops 3.2% of crosses he faces per ninety minutes, which puts him in the bottom three percentile for goalkeepers. The bottom 3 percent! Manchester United have a goalkeeper who doesn’t come for crosses and cannot command his area. You can blame Harry Maguire all you want but the captain cannot be responsible for his goalkeeper’s lack of physical presence.

Combine that with his below average distribution and you have a weak link in the modern game. De Gea can stop shots well, and stop long-shots in particular incredibly well, but these other parts of the game are going to let Manchester United down. Unai Simon, Robert Sanchez and Brentford’s David Raya are all more rounded keepers than De Gea, and United’s weak back-line doesn’t look like protecting him anytime soon. 

With Dean Henderson out of the building, so many issues in the transfer window and on the pitch at the moment, it seems like De Gea will continue to go about his business, pulling off smart stops from range without making glaring errors. But the longer he stays in this United side, the longer they will struggle to adapt to Ten Hag’s style. 

The fans won’t believe it, but De Gea is now Manchester United’s unmentionable problem.

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