Now that the Premier League season is over, it’s time to slowly get back to basics and launch our customary series of articles. Starting today and on forward, we will be reviewing each member of the Manchester United team and their performances in the recently finished season. We will examine more closely at their actions, the results they attained, and the overall impact they had on this team. As every summer, we will look at each player individually, except for those that did not have much of the influence on the campaign, where we might write about a couple of players together.
But with the start of these series, it starts, as usual, with David De Gea, Manchester United’s number one. While a couple of seasons ago there were real questions whether the Spaniard will remain at the club, and whether he will be the first-choice goalkeeper, De Gea has managed to keep his position. But this past season has been another in string of evidence where United could easily come to conclusion that the best solution for everyone could be to find a new first-choice goakeeper.
Funnily enough, De Gea ended the campaign as Premier League Golden Glove Award winner, as he had the most clean sheets throughout the campaign. But while we wrote already about the fallacies of that award, we should once again stress out that United’s problems were not solved because De Gea managed to keep a big number of clean sheets across the season. In fact, United conceded 43 goals, more than one per match. Man United faced the fifth-lowest quality of shots on target of all Premier League sides, showing good defensive work was making it easier for De Gea in goal. Only 16 Premier League goalkeepers had a positive number in post-shot expected goals +/-, meaning only 16 of them saved more goals than they were expected. David De Gea was at -0.7, which is worse than the likes of Joel Robles of Leeds, Vicente Guaita of Crystal Palace or Neto of Bournemouth.
But none of these numbers show quite enough just how much United under Erik Ten Hag are getting ready for a different kind of goalkeeper. The eye-test has shown that the Spaniard is simply not good enough to start the attacks from the back, as his use of his feet is not ideal. His poor passing and ability to beat the press put the entire team under pressure, which was something we could see all too well in the recent FA Cup final against Manchester City.
De Gea also continued making mistakes which led to opposition scoring or at least getting dangerous opportunities and it seems clearer than ever that if Ten Hag’s United are to evolve in his second season at the club, he will need a goalkeeper actually capable of doing the things almost all goalkeepers at top European clubs are. It is no wonder there are rumours of Andre Onana being Man United’s target in the upcoming summer transfer window.
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