As we come to the second international break of the season, both of Manchester United’s goalkeepers Sergio Romero and David de Gea have played four Premier League matches and two Champions League fixtures.
Recently ex Manchester City and England International keeper David James made the ridiculous claim that de Gea should be dropped and replaced by Romero as he was letting in too many goals since his returns, but do the facts back up the figures.
With that being said, how do de Gea and Romero compare so far this season?
“When he [de Gea] does play, they do let in quite a few goals,” James said. “Romero starts the season and he gets three clean sheets, and we’ve been questioning why he isn’t playing. Then he [de Gea] comes back in and keeps another clean sheet.”
“I think he makes some wonderful saves and he is very athletic, but the bigger picture of the goalkeeping art, he doesn’t help as much as Romero can.”
The reasoning behind why Romero should start according to James is that he kept three clean sheets in his opening three premier league games but the truth is Romero was hardly challenged in those games due to how strongly Darmian, Smalling, Blind and Shaw started the season together.
Against Tottenham, Aston Villa and Newcastle in those first three matches, the opposition only had a combined total of five shots on United’s target, most of which were comfortable saves for Romero preventing us from seeing what he really had to offer.
Compare this to de Gea’s first three premier league games of the season, since his return to the first team following the signing of his new contract, against Liverpool, Southampton and Sunderland they racked up a total of 16 shots on United’s goal, over three times as many faced by Romero.
Despite the fact that three goals found their way past de Gea, he was still forced to make more saves, some crucial and some world class, such as spectacularly saving Jose Fonte’s header to earn United the full three points against Southampton in a 3-2 win.
It isn’t just in the domestic league where there is a gulf in class between the two keepers. Each of them has taken part in two Champions League games with Romero facing Club Brugge twice in the play-off stages and de Gea against PSV and Wolfsburg in the group stages.
Over the two legs against Brugge, Romero was once again only faced with a total of two shots on his target, with a goal slipping by courtesy of a Michael Carrick own goal. Again, the lack of chances Romero had to deal with is down to the strong consistent performance of United’s defence.
Whereas for de Gea, he was faced with a total of six shots on target albeit conceding three goals against the Dutch champions and the German runners up.
Sergio Romero
Games – Tottenham, Aston Villa, Club Brugge, Newcastle, Club Brugge, Swansea
Shots on United’s goal – 11
Goals conceded – 3
David de Gea
Games – Liverpool, PSV, Southampton, Sunderland, Wolfsburg, Arsenal
Shots on United’s goal – 27
Goals conceded – 9
So is David de Gea overrated?
De Gea may have conceded three times as many goals as Romero did in the same amount of games but there are two major factors that have resulted in this.
Firstly, de Gea has been against much tougher opponents as three of his four league games were against teams in the top ten of the table compared to Romero’s one. This is the same case in the Champions League, as de Gea has faced off against teams good enough to qualify for the group stage whereas Romero was against a team not worth for automatic qualification.
Secondly and perhaps the most important factor, Luke Shaw’s injury. All six of Romero games contained the same back four of Darmian, Smalling, Blind and Shaw who were playing brilliantly, Romero couldn’t have asked for a better defence in form.
However de Gea only got to play his first match with this defence before disaster struck and his leg got broken early on in the PSV fixture.
The side-lining of arguably one of United’s top performers of the season at that stage was devastating and resulted in van Gaal having to reshuffle and experiment with his defence again, playing Blind, Rojo, Darmian Young and Valencia in a variety of full back positions to no avail.
Like previous seasons before, constantly using various defenders in different positions each week causes an insecurity and inconsistency at the back, resulting in errors being made leaving de Gea has the last line of defence far too many times.
Would Romero have done any better in de Gea’s place?
Put simply, I highly doubt it, there was only one game where Romero was actually called upon to show what he could do, against Swansea with disappointing results.
In defence, Blind was no match for the raw strength and power from Bafetimbi Gomis so Swansea had found a weak link in United’s defence, this allowed Andre Ayew to go unmarked and head in a goal with Romero caught wrong footed and watched the ball sail by.
This was quickly followed up by Gomis putting the ball through Romero’s legs from an acute angle at United’s near post. Two quick errors had cost United the game and the three points.
One could also say that Romero was once again flat footed in the game against Club Brugge as he watch Michael Carrick’s own goal (from the edge of the penalty box) roll in.
If Romero was making errors against these kind of clubs, how would he have fared against the big teams on a regular basis?
Verdict
I said at the start of the season if Romero could emulate his International form that we’ve seen from him with Argentina then he would have made a fine first choice keeper but that hasn’t formulated.
Romero in his six games often had little to do and when he would finally need to come to United’s rescue, it was usually followed by an error on his behalf and conceded the goal. He has looked slow, sluggish and unaware of the game at times and doesn’t deserve the first team spot currently.
Compared to de Gea, who even though has let in more goals, he has won United points, not lost them. One could debate that if Shaw had never got injured and de Gea had the same back four for his games as Romero did, United could have conceded a lot less goals.
David de Gea is currently one of, if not the best keeper in the world and no matter what United’s back four situation is like, I’d rather have him between the sticks.
Sorry David James but you couldn’t be more wrong.
