De Gea’s costly errors
UNITED boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has said he will keep faith with David de Gea despite a string of costly errors. But are the Spaniard’s fluffs a result of a loss of confidence or a goalkeeper in decline?
v Barcelona (Messi)
OF all De Gea’s errors, this one is the most difficult to explain. A goalkeeper should never think that any shot is easy, no matter how tame the effort, but this was definitely a case of De Gea’s auto-pilot letting him down. His relaxed nature is so often his strength, but in this case you could accuse him of relaxing too much, literally taking his eye off the ball and mistiming the collapse of his body to save the ball. EXPERT VIEW
v Everton (Sigurdsson)
NOT to deflect from De Gea’s involvement here, but Nemanja Matic’s passive defending leads to the opportunity for Gylfi Sigurdsson. From then on it’s down to De Gea. A big giveaway is when he glances behind and you can see he has lost his bearings. He is slow to get into position and still a step too far to his left when the ball is struck. It’s wrong to say he shouldn’t be beaten from that distance because it happens but in this instance he gives himself too much to do.
v Man City (Sane and Silva)
BOTH were goals he shouldn’t be conceding and De Gea would admit he should at least save Sane’s shot, regardless of him employing his favoured technique of blocking with his feet. Sane’s shot is just too powerful and just off the floor, making it a more difficult save.
For Silva’s goal, Luke Shaw let him down by allowing an opponent to come inside to open up the angle for him. De Gea can’t just take the right position and is beaten.
v Chelsea (Alonso)
THIS is the biggest technical fault. Again he can be accused of thinking Antonio Rudiger’s long shot is simple. Instead of stepping towards the ball and catching it away from his body, he sits back, with his arms bent close in to his body.
He fumbles the ball and Marcos Alsonso tucks it in.