When David de Gea does eventually leave Manchester United, he will surely leave in a frenzy of good will, thanks and adoration from United fans, with an imminent testimonial as a sigil of appreciation for his exemplary service.
A fitting and deserving end to the Spaniard’s prosperous tenure at Old Trafford – but it doesn’t tell the whole story…
You see, when David de Gea joined Manchester United in the summer of 2011, in place of retiring club legend Edwin van der Sar, he joined with not only his predecessor’s shoes to fill but his own too. He came into the side a timid young boy, allegedly weighing just 71kg leaving a lot of growing to do, both metaphorically and literally.
His early years were fraught with on-pitch mistakes and off-pitch dilemmas as he tried to adjust to life in Manchester. Former United goalkeeper coach Eric Steele recounted de Gea’s early days at Old Trafford saying, “we worked with him on and off the field to make him more powerful. We changed his lifestyle. He would finish training and want to go home. When I told him to come back in the afternoon he’d ask: ‘Why?’”
He continues, “there were lifestyle issues. He’d sleep two or three times a day. He’d have his main meal late at night. He’d eat too many tacos. We pushed protein drinks on him straight after training. We physically made him drink. We had him in the gym a lot. He hated it. They don’t do the gym in Spain as much. We needed to build his core strength.”
De Gea’s early years, whilst the most troubled, were arguably his most successful at the club, with his only Premier League winners medal coming after Sir Alex Ferguson’s last campaign as United boss in 2013. His personal growth continued though as he began to get to grips with life at United and in Manchester itself.
Nothing quite settled though, as United’s form continued to curtail as they ploughed further on into the post-Fergie wilderness; de Gea was getting better and better as each week passed and thus it wasn’t long until the club’s and the player’s contrasting fortunes drew attention.
Real Madrid came calling and de Gea thought he was better off returning home to Madrid and he was right as well, as it would’ve turned out. Things didn’t all go according to plan though, as we all know, as on the last day of the transfer window it is alleged a faulty fax machine stopped the deal going through at the last minute, prompting a cacophony of incredulity to cascade over the footballing world, as David de Gea, despite being ready and waiting in Madrid for his unveiling, was still a Manchester United player.
He didn’t let this disappointment get the better of him though.
Shortly after returning to Manchester, with his tail between his legs, de Gea signed a new four-year contract and pledged his future to United. And upon doing so he continued to perform on the pitch and, for a time, was the perennial Player of the Year winner at the club, setting the standards for the others around him.
It wasn’t to last though, as de Gea fell victim to the same fate that Jesse Lingard did. The Spaniard only managed a single save at the 2018 World Cup and even in spite of coming off the back of arguably his best ever season in a United shirt, de Gea’s confidence was shot.
De Gea’s form dropped off a cliff, as yet more managerial imbalance upset squad harmony with United lurching from Mourinho to Solskjær and short-term thinking to planning for the long haul. De Gea’s tenancy as the United No.1 though remained unchallenged with Sergio Romero being seen as nothing more than a sporadic change of pace in the United goal, rather than any sort of long-term solution.
Unchallenged that is, until now.
Dean Henderson’s return to Manchester United sparked questions over de Gea’s place in the XI moving forward following the former’s impressive spell out on loan but Solskjær – perhaps not wanting to rock the boat too much with the whole season ahead – elected to stick with Big Spanish Dave one more time.
The pair have interchanged throughout the past season with neither really staking their claim for their place on the teamsheet with errors present in both of their games. De Gea though, was the preferred Cup ‘keeper come the end of the season and started the Europa League final.
There’s no need to talk about that game however, as we all know what happened.
The point being, de Gea hasn’t been the player we were so desperate to keep in 2015 ever since his infamous World Cup performance and despite his depreciating form and now seemingly permanent decline, he was awarded a brand-new contract with an eye-watering new wage slap-bang in the middle of his rut.
Whilst maybe a necessity at the time, with Henderson nowhere near the picture back in 2019, it’s coming back to haunt United now. Slowly. But surely.
With no real speculation of a move elsewhere, it looks like Manchester United will start a second successive season with no clear first choice goalkeeper and massive wages being spent on both David de Gea and Dean Henderson. Tom Heaton’s return to Carrington won’t make Solskjær’s task any simpler either as he has said he’s, “looking forward to competing with the other goalkeepers.”
Time and time again, United’s hierarchy have resolved long-term problems by simply ignoring them or allowing the wrong people to just try and throw money at them and it seems we’re doing it again with not only Paul Pogba but with David de Gea too.
De Gea is still relatively young for a goalkeeper at 30 years-old but as he continues to regress and his age continues to climb, perhaps Solskjær should cut his losses and opt for the more inexperienced but improving Dean Henderson and afford him time to bed into the line-up without the prospect of him losing his place should he be slightly subpar.
The key to many defensive records and good defences in general is stability. Harry Maguire has had a wide array of different players starting around him, with Solskjær still seemingly unsure on who his best defenders are. The reportedly imminent arrival of Raphaël Varane could and should make Solskjær’s mind up for him in that department, but I also think he needs to settle on who his best goalkeeper is, as well as his best centre half partnership.
Lee Grant is nothing more than a glorified goalkeeper coach these days and as ambitious as, I’m sure, Tom Heaton is, barring catastrophe I can’t see him breaking into the matchday squad let alone the first XI, which takes us back to square one again. We were all so sure that after de Gea’s penalty shoot-out nightmare, we would actually see a decision made on our goalkeeping situation that would have an element of finality to it – but no.
Henderson and de Gea look set, once again, to compete for United’s No.1 shirt and I can’t help but feel another season of revolving doors at the back can only be detrimental to any realistic title dreams we have. Incidentally, the last time we did win a league title, David de Gea was competing with Anders Lindegaard for the No.1 spot but that was behind arguably the best centre half partnership the league has ever seen, managed also by, inarguably, the greatest manager the league has ever seen.
If United want to sustain a title challenge with the likes of Manchester City, Liverpool and perhaps even Chelsea, then the experimenting, in my opinion, needs to stop. There really isn’t a whole lot between David de Gea and Dean Henderson so either ‘keeper would suffice but given his profile, his age and his more prominent aerial presence, I believe Dean Henderson should be United’s No.1 going into next season.
David de Gea was worth the anxiety over his move to Real Madrid, when he was at his best; David de Gea was worth the £375,000 per week we pay him now, when he was at his best; he was worth the terror whenever a cross came in, when he was at his best.
But he’s not at his best anymore and he hasn’t been for some time.
It’s time to move on from David de Gea, give Henderson the time to bed in as No.1 and put Heaton in as the backup. De Gea’s massive wages are likely going to discourage most realistic suitors for him given he’s no longer one the world’s very best, but nevertheless another season of superfluous spending on two goalkeeper’s wages shouldn’t be allowed to happen.
Henderson is far from the finished article, so it’s perhaps going to be a bumpy road with him at first but I’d rather that than remain idle on de Gea and meander further down the path of a lost cause, watching his stock, resale value and reputation plummet and his wallet thicken.
David de Gea deserves better than to be consigned to languishing in the purgatory of a manager’s indifference and the fans’ ire, slowly drifting into irrelevancy, whilst sitting out the big games in lieu of – to coin a phrase – ‘Sergio Romeroing’ about in the Cup competitions against Burton Albion and the like.
In my opinion, de Gea’s career here at Old Trafford has come to a natural end, Dean Henderson’s meteoric rise up the ranks only slightly stalled by sharing responsibilities with de Gea last season thus being unable to completely find himself in the United goal. Whereas the Spaniard has stagnated and subsequently regressed in comparison to his European counterparts every year since the 2018 World Cup and has ultimately lost the trust of many of those around him and perhaps even himself.
If he stays, I can’t see a future in which he recaptures his form from the middle of the previous decade, if he did then that would be brilliant but, to me, a future of slowly shrinking into a lesser and lesser ‘keeper and being underappreciated by United fans, watching his legacy diminish seems more likely.
I love David de Gea, he was the only redeeming quality from the plane crash of feckless tomfoolery under David Moyes; the shining light in Louis van Gaal’s excruciating miasma of boredom and a record-breaker in the tumultuous ride we had under Jose Mourinho. He doesn’t deserve to be the scapegoat after we couldn’t find a way to score more than one goal against a very average Villareal side but if that is what it takes for him to be able to rebuild his career somewhere else then he should take it.
Whenever David de Gea does leave Manchester United, hopefully, as I said at the start, the fans give him the send off he deserves, regardless of how his career at United ended.