The Eleventh-Hour Approaches for David de Gea, and its Name is Dean Henderson
The clock approaches midnight and David de Gea’s reign as goalkeeper for Manchester United will soon end unless he can break his curse. In a game where the objective is to put a ball in the opponents goal more times than they put it in yours it is fair to say that goalkeepers are fairly important to a team’s success. The question then becomes how far can a star fall from grace before a team must move on to the next big thing? David de Gea has been the starting goalkeeper for Manchester United since 2011, when he joined from Spanish side Atlético Madrid at just 20 years old. Filling the boots of the legendary dutchman Edwin Van der Sar was never going to be easy, but de Gea struggled mightily early on and his confidence issues resulted in numerous errors. Despite a shaky start to his career in England, he quickly gained confidence as a result of the confidence placed in him by legendary coach Sir Alex Ferguson, and proved himself to be one of the best goalkeepers in the Premier League over the course of his career.
His career peaked during the 2017/18 season, where he kept 18 clean sheets in 37 appearances, earning him the golden glove for that season, and staking his claim as one of the best goalkeepers in the world. This feat was made even more impressive by the disastrous defense in front of him, making his job even more challenging. De Gea allowed only 28 goals, second only to champions Manchester City whose style of play prevented their defense from being put under pressure often. He had an 80.7% save percentage, which is astronomical. Using the metric xG2 (a variant of ‘expected goals’ created by journalist Bobby Gardner for The Ringer, which can be used to assess the performance of a keeper relative to the quality of shots they faced) De Gea is a class above the rest, saving a whopping 10 goals more than he is expected to, given the data, which translates to conceding only 60% of what he should. Numbers fall short of describing how magical this performance was. Despite the poor performances by the rest of the team, especially the defense, de Gea inspired the team to second place in the Premier League, an FA Cup final, and the knockout stages of the Champions League. By the end of the season de Gea was widely considered as the best in the business and fans were sweating about how much money his next contract would cost.
His next season, however, would mark the beginning of the end. Beginning at the 2018 World Cup, de Gea would make key mistakes that would prove costly for Spain and result in a loss to Russia in the round of 16. Foreshadowed and perhaps haunted by his World Cup performances, in 2018/19 de Gea would regress, making key errors that cost Manchester United wins, including a horrendous 4 errors leading to goal and only 7 clean sheets in the Premier League. Despite this, he still managed to save 71.6% of shots, which is more than respectable, but indeed a far cry from his heroic performances of the previous season. Towards the end of the season he found a small resurgence in form, making a number of key stops and imbuing some confidence in fans of the team.
Fans were hopeful that de Gea would return to his best during the 2019/20 season, and excitement reigned supreme when he extended his contract with the team for an additional 4 years, but a challenger appeared. Despite a statistical uptick in performance throughout the season, Dean Henderson, on loan from Manchester United at Sheffield Wednesday, stole the show. For de Gea’s 72% save ratio, Dean had 76%. For de Gea’s 3 errors leading to goal, Dean had 1. You get the idea. And not only statistically was the young Englishman superior to the Spaniard, but also stylistically. Dean Henderson fits the mold of the modern goalkeeper where de Gea does not. He performs the duties of a sweeper keeper, operating further from the goal to mop up long balls behind his slow centerback Maguire. Henderson is also proactive in stopping crosses, up 2.5% in crosses stopped by GK, which would help mask his other centerback Lindelof’s poor aerial ability. Could Henderson be the missing key to a championship side?
Make no mistake, this is the eleventh hour for David de Gea. Unless he can break the curse that has plagued him since his trip to Russia for the 2018 World Cup, his time in Manchester draws to a close. Dean Henderson was not sent out on loan this season, which indicates that manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer plans to make the switch if de Gea cannot find his form. Henderson presents a stylistic departure from the pure shot stopper profile that de Gea has offered and presents a less one-dimensional approach to the goalkeeper position, which is increasingly in vogue in the modern era of soccer. The pressure is on, and it remains to be seen if de Gea can survive the crucible.
https://fbref.com/en/players/7ba6d84e/David-de-Gea
Addendum: This was written for my sports data class, MCO 494
