David de Gea: Last season was embarrassing
De Gea, 31, should have probably won the player of the year award last season but he was pipped at the post by Cristiano Ronaldo
Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea and José Mourinho did not always see eye to eye, but they firmly agree with each other on one thing — if a goalkeeper wins the player of the year award at a big club such as Manchester United, it has not been a good season.
“Something is wrong if that happens,” Mourinho said in 2018. “Yep,” De Gea says, nodding his head when reminded of what the former United manager had said. “I love to win the award, but I’d prefer it if a striker or a midfielder won it.”
Eleven years since arriving from Atletico Madrid, the Spaniard has won as many player of the year awards (four) as team trophies. One of the best goalkeepers in the world over the past decade has only one Premier League, one FA Cup, one Carabao Cup and a single Europa League to show for his excellence.
De Gea, 31, should have probably won the player of the year award last season but he was pipped at the post by Cristiano Ronaldo, who scored 24 goals. United cancelled their awards night at Old Trafford because they were so embarrassed at their sixth-place finish, and one suspects that De Gea agreed with the decision.
“Last season was a disaster,” he said. “It was the worst season I’ve had at the club. I was embarrassed sometimes. Some games were a mess, it was painful. To lose by four or five goals is unacceptable.”
The last point refers to the fact that United conceded four or more goals in six league games last season, including defeats by Leicester City, Brighton & Hove Albion and relegated Watford.
De Gea pulls no punches as he speaks to the national press in a beige room at a hotel in Perth, where United play the final game of their pre-season tour against Aston Villa on Saturday. One senses that he is speaking so freely for two reasons: firstly, he wants supporters to know that last year was painful for him and his team-mates. Secondly, he wants to assure them that there will be no repeat this year under Erik ten Hag, the new manager.
Each time De Gea speaks about the horrors of the previous campaign, he ends the sentence with: “That can’t happen again this year.”
The goalkeeper, who has made 486 appearances for United, knows better than most that it is possible to get through a sticky patch and rediscover your best form. His 2019-20 campaign was littered with errors. The season after, he was lambasted by sections of the United fanbase for failing to score a sudden-death penalty in the Europa League final defeat by Villarreal, having failed to stop any of the Spanish side’s spot-kicks.
As he left the stadium in Gdansk, Alex Ferguson put his arm around the goalkeeper. “He [Ferguson] said: ‘Sometimes life is like this, it’s a penalty, that’s it, keep working and next season show your best,’ ” De Gea said. “It was a bit strange to have to take the penalty but that happens in football sometimes.”
Had history taken a different course, De Gea would have been spending the summer celebrating Real Madrid’s 14th Champions League triumph. Does he ever think about what might have been, had that fax machine not broken just as it was sending the relevant paperwork over to the Bernabéu in the final minutes of the 2015 summer transfer window?
“No,” he says firmly. “I don’t mind saying that. I’m just thinking about Manchester. It’s my home. It’s an honour to be at this club.”
Indeed, De Gea wants to spend the rest of his career at United. His present £375,000-a-week contract has one year left to run — with an option to extend it by one season — but he is happy to begin talks over a new deal.
