Erik ten Hag admits he can't turn a blind eye to David de Gea's unconvincing kicking display in Thursday night's win over Real Betis.
United won the first leg of their Europa League last-16 tie 4-1, but the match was notable for poor kicking from goalkeeper De Gea, who was making his 526th appearance for the club.
With the score at 1-1 toward the end of the first half, De Gea kicked the ball straight at Betis' Juanmi, who picked out his side's goalscorer Ayoze Perez. Bruno Fernandes managed to half block the shot from the man on loan from Leicester, but it bounced across goal and off a post before being cleared.
Former United star Paul Scholes was working on the match as a pundit for BT Sport, and said of the incident: "David isn’t the best footballer let me put it that way. Very strange pass."
Ten Hag stressed that De Gea, who recently set a new club record for clean sheets, is still an important player for his side, but added that he will have to address the kicking issue.
"From today I can’t ignore it, but I think we have seen many games he did really well," said the United boss.
“I don’t know what the reason was. There was a lot of wind, a different ball, probably he had some problems with that, but I know we can deal with it and he will do better Sunday [against Southampton ].
“We work on that but David is working on that.
“But I think we have seen in this season that he is improving and he will keep improving, I’m sure.”
De Gea is out of contract at the end of the season, and as one of United's top earners he is likely to have to accept a pay cut in order to remain at the club.
Speaking in January, he said: ""I hope [to stay for the rest of my career].
"I was saying this is my club, I've been here many, many years and it's a huge honour to be here and I'm so happy here."
De Gea picked up his fifth major honour with United when they won the Carabao Cup last month, but he has often come in for criticism during the ups and downs of his career at the club.
Ex-United captain Roy Keane is a frequent critic of the Spaniard, and hit out at his display in last weekend's 7-0 drubbing at rivals Liverpool.
"De Gea was getting presentations last week [for the clean sheet record], I wonder if he’d get a presentation tonight?" said Keane.
"Giving up seven goals like that. Don’t let him off the hook.
"The way he controlled his back four, some of the set pieces and the last goal was schoolboy stuff."
