On Friday night as David De Gea failed to save a routine Steven Bergwijn shot that was hit straight at him, it felt like déjà vu. These sort of mistakes have become more of a regularity for the Spaniard and it seems to be more than just a bad patch of form. For De Gea this downward slide can be traced back to the 2018 World Cup, where the Spaniard made only 1 save the entire tournament. This continued into the 2018/19 season where routine mistakes against the likes of Marcos Alonso, Lionel Messi and Granit Xhaka cost United dearly. This season De Gea’s errors have been even more prominent. It started with being beaten by Patrick Van Aanholt on the near post, then it was his failed attempt to catch Ismaila Sarr’s shot at Watford and finally he kicked it right into the boot of Calvert Lewin in March. This has happened far too often for a keeper of his quality and the Red Devils need to see this objectively instead of remembering him for what he was 3 years ago.
Even during the Sky Sports half time show, Roy Keane as well was extremely critical of De Gea and did not pull any punches. He said, “I am sick to death of this goal-keeper and would be fighting him at half time”. He proceeded to state that the Bergwijn goal was a standard save for an established international goalkeeper and De Gea is the most overrated goalkeeper he’s seen in a long, long time. While this is the Roy Keane way of saying things and he does go over the top, there is no denying that De Gea’s mistakes are becoming more frequent.
On the flipside, Dean Henderson’s performance during the restart was the antithesis to De Gea’s. The Englishman was excellent for Sheffield United and made 6 saves for the Blades which kept them in the game as they drew 0-0 to Aston Villa. He has had a fantastic 2 year loan spell at Sheffield United and the United academy product has been one of their standout performers this season. Last year, he won the Golden Glove in the championship and kept 22 clean sheets as Sheffield United secured promotion to the Premiership. And he has built on that form this year with plenty of notable displays. He is certainly knocking on the door at United, but are his performances that impressive that he should displace United’s 4 time player of the year in the line up?
| David De Gea | Metric | Dean Henderson |
| 8 | Clean Sheets | 11 |
| 71% | Save Percentage | 77% |
| 57% | Close Range Save % | 67% |
| 76% | Mid Range Save % | 80% |
| 84% | Long Range Save % | 100% |
| 47% | 1 on 1 Save % | 54% |
*Stats updated till Tottenham vs Manchester United
Henderson has kept 11 clean sheets so far this season and is in the running for the golden glove, while De Gea has only managed 8. They both have a similar number of saves 78 for De Gea and 76 for Henderson but Henderson has a superior save percentage of 77% compared to 71% for De Gea. Also, if you look at the save percentage in terms of the location of the shots, the stats are in favor of the Englishman. Henderson has a better save percentage from short range, mid range and long range shots even though those are considered to be De Gea’s specialty. Henderson even has a better record this season from 1 on 1’s.
However these statistics don’t particularly tell the entire story behind the quality of a goalkeeper and the shots they faced. A better indication of goalkeeper’s quality is Post Shot Expected Goals (PSxG) or Expected Goals on target which indicated the shot stopping ability of the goal keeper. In a nutshell PSxG is used to indicate the quality of the shots each goalkeeper has faced and how many goals they were expected to concede based on quality of shots faced. Dean Henderson has conceded 22 goals this season but has faced a PSxG of 29.7, this gives a difference of 7.7 between goals allowed and his PSxG and hence he has saved 7.7 goals for Sheffield this season which is one of the highest in the league. De Gea on the other hand has conceded 31 goals but has a PSxG of 29.3, which gives a difference of -1.7 and hence De Gea has nearly conceded 2 more goals than he should have. If you look at De Gea’s PSxG numbers over the past 3 years, the numbers are telling. In 2017/18 De Gea had a difference between goals conceded to PSxG of +12.4, that reduced to +2.1 in 2018/19 and finally now this season it is at -1.7. In terms of the numbers De Gea has gone from being the best shot stopper in the world to below average in the span of 3 years.
The other damning statistic is the mistakes he has been making which have become more of a habit. De Gea has conceded 3 errors which have led to goals this season adding to the 4 errors he conceded last season. Comparatively Henderson has been tighter, conceding only 1 mistake which led to a goal which was against Liverpool and Gini Wijnaldum earlier in the season.
One more differentiating factor between the 2 is their penalty saving abilities. De Gea has faced only 1 penalty this season in the league which he conceded but adding to that De Gea faced 12 penalties in the league since 2015/16 and has failed to save even one of them in that period. Henderson on the other hand has saved 1 of the 2 penalties he has faced this season, which was against Gabriel Jesus. Also, In the 2017/18 season when Henderson was on loan to Shrewsbury in League one, he saved 2 of the 6 penalties he faced throughout the campaign.
| David De Gea | Metric | Dean Henderson |
| 736 | Attempted Passes | 812 |
| 75% | Pass Completion % | 40% |
| 0/4 | Short Passes Completed | 1/1 |
| 340/343 | Medium Range Passes Completed | 81/82 |
| 218/329 | Long Range Passes Completed | 243/729 |
| 2.56 | xGChain | 0.26 |
One area where De Gea does comprehensively have an edge over the Englishman is his passing and ability to play out from the back. De Gea has attempted a total of 736 passes over the season and has completed 558 successfully with a 75% completion rate. Henderson on the other hand has attempted 812 passes but completed only 325 with a completion percentage of 40. They both are pretty tidy in terms of Medium Range passes between 5 and 25 yards but in terms of Long Range passes more than 25 yards De Gea is miles better than his counterpart. Also, if you look at xGChain which measures the expected goals of every possession a player is involved in, De Gea outclasses Henderson. De Gea has an xGChain of 2.56 which is 10th amongst goalkeepers in the League while Henderson only manages an xGChain of 0.26 which puts him at 23rd amongst keepers. It is important to note that both Sheffield and Manchester United play completely different styles of football with Sheffield being more direct and United who prefer to play it out from the back. However, this is an area of the game where Henderson needs to work on and improve if he were to be the number 1 at Old Trafford.
For now, the situation with the goalkeeper spot at United is that they have committed their future to their long standing superstar. In 2019 De Gea signed a massive contract extension with United till 2023 worth a whopping 375,000 pounds a week which makes him the highest paid player in the Premier League. United won’t be getting rid of De Gea anytime soon, so the question arises is what do you do with Dean Henderson, the man next in line for the throne. United can do what Chelsea did with Thibaut Courtois and loan him out until he becomes a truly World Class player and then bring him in to the team. The other option is they can keep him as the number 2 and let him play the cup and European games and slowly bed him into the squad like how Barcelona did with Marc Andre Ter Stegen. They may also want to cash in on him and there are some rumors of Chelsea preparing a 50 million pound bid for Henderson to replace Kepa. Whatever they do decide to do, it will be interesting to see how the number 1 spot progresses at United over the next few years.
As for David De Gea it seems like this new normal is not too dissimilar to the old one. These high profile errors have cost United badly over the past 2 years and is hindering their progress as they look to reach the champions league and eventually challenge for the title. United have put their faith in him and that world class shot stopper is still in there somewhere but Manchester United need him now more than ever.
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