David De Gea made his 100th premier league appearance for Manchester United on Saturday. This may come as a surprise statement as the goalkeeper is still at tthe tender age of 23. The stopper capped his milestone with a game typical of his career at Old Trafford thus far. The United #1 made a poor decision to flap at a cross, which allowed Diafra Sakho to score – before saving smartly to deny Sahko his second of the game. The Manchester club has been suspect defensively since Edwin Van Der Sar retired and if United are to correct their defensive frailty, De Gea needs to step up his game.
Despite his tender age for a goalkeeper, the Spaniard has a considerable amount of experience -after racking up nearly 260 appearances over the last 6 years. After impressing as a mere 18 year-old in the Atletico Madrid starting Xi, Sir Alex Ferguson made the move to make him the most expensive ‘keeper in British history. After signing for United for £18m in 2011, Atletico replaced De Gea with Chelsea’s Thibaut Courtois – which many deemed a downgrade at the time. The Madrid native was signed to replace the recently retired Van Der Sar and touted as the United #1 for the next 20 years.
De Gea struggled early in his United career, due to lofty expectations and not being physically mature. In the Spanish league, there is less crowding of the keeper and more crosses going into the box, which was an obvious weakness to De Gea’s game. His physical ineptness was even called out by Ferguson, who told the youngster he needed to bulk up. De Gea was also susceptible to long range shots, with him often parrying shots he should be catching – however this was put in part to him being short-sighted. Last season there was a real improvement in De Gea’s game. De Gea was the standout performer in a very poor season for United and was deservedly Manchester United’s player of the year.
Despite being arguably the pure best shopper in the league, rivalled Julian Speroni and Alan McGregor, he still needs to round off his game to become a complete goalkeeper. With no Rio Ferdinand or Nemanja Vidic, De Gea needs to become a leader to the back four, be vocal and instruct his defence what to do. De Gea has excellent ball control, though he must learn to be more effective with his distribution and do a better job of launching counter attacks. Where De Gea needs to improve the most is his command of the area. He needs to deal with crosses and corners better to alleviate the pressure on the defence. Too often De Gea stays on his line, which allows opponents space to hit balls into dangerous areas – and with no outstanding defender in the air, causes a lot of problems for the team.
Every top team needs a top goalkeeper to win points on his own for the team, and De Gea may feel he could’ve done more even last season; a weak hand and poor positioning against Tottenham allowed Eriksen to score the deciding goal, whilst a parry to allow Darren Bent equalise in the infamous 2-2 draw against Fulham – where United crossed the ball 81 times. Even though De Gea is only 23, Marc-Andre ter Stegen and Thibaut Courtois have shown very consistent performances as 22 year olds.
De Gea is one of the Barclays Premier League’s best goalkeepers and he will more than likely be Spain’s first choice goalkeeper post 2016. However, this is currently a crucial time for Manchester United and his club will want him to take the next step in his career.
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