Manchester United had a great transfer window last summer getting in a ton of players like our young prodigy Jadon Sancho whom United had been begging for years to join worth around 80 million pounds along with two prolific players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Rafael Varane from Juventus and Real Madrid respectively.
Ole Gunner Solskjaer had been under a lot of crutiny by the fans around the world for not winning trophies despite spending lumpsum on the players.
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However, this trophy drought has been going on since 2017. With these signings they gave hope to the United fans around the world and also to the United board for a positive outcome. Unfortunately, the scene has been quite the same, in fact a bit worse.
Team chemistry has been lacking. David De Gea who was replaced by Dean Henderson as a first team keeper under Ole’s reign came out to be a totally different player. To be precise he has risen from his ashes. De Gea couldn’t keep up to the playing style of United for a quite a number of seasons. Conceding goals which shouldn’t go in were conceded due to his carelessness. In fact there has been innumerable occasions where United lost games due to his mistakes.
De Gea has proved the world wrong. The attention quickly turned from Ronaldo to De Gea as he played immensely well against West Ham in the Premiere League, saving Mark Nobles last minute penalty. Having leading the race for the greatest number of saves this season clocking a number of 92 saves at an average of 3.68 stops per game no keeper is close to his stats.
Games against Manchester City could have seen them demolishing United by a five or six goal margin but it was De Gea who took charge of saving United. Another awestruck save was witnessed against Norwich saving Pukki’s screamer which could have gone in if it wasn’t him.
De Gea won the Premiere League player of the month in February becoming the first goalkeeper in six long years to win one after Fraser Froster of Southampton. So far this season De Gea has been the No-1 player for United. He has been consistently good and making remarkable saves day in and day out. The only problem that United faces is keeping a clean sheet. United’s horrible defensive role is to be blamed for it. He has been the man responsible for United’s top four hopes.
Without him United would have been in the mid table battling for top six maybe. What this season’s fixtures show is that De Gea has over performed more than any other PL goalkeepers, keeping out 7.6 goals that could have been conceded. José Sá is the only player to come closer to him.
Ahead of the Aston Villa game Ragnick admitted that he rated De Gea in his top three goalkeepers in the world and even comparing him with Manuel Neuer. Game after game De Gea has delivered top notch performance for United preventing United to fall apart and help them stay in a respectable position despite losing a few matches.
Alongside De Gea it has been Cristiano Ronaldo who helped United achieve a respectable position. De Gea’s brilliant save against Brighton was an astounding one. His reflexes are something that a very few keepers possess.
Whatever, United achieved so far, all credits should go to the Spaniard for being exceptionally well. It seems at this point that he is the only one playing for the batch. Harry Maguire, Fred and Mctominay’s defensive role has been horrendous and it is because of them United conceded everytime. Bringing in a competent CDM should be the utmost priority of the manager and changing a few tactics at the back should do the job.
De Gea’s rating this season so far should be a 8/10.
