It seems as though Erik ten Hag is starting to plan for life after David De Gea at Manchester United.
The Spanish international has been United’s number one for pretty much the entirety of his time at the club since signing from Atletico Madrid in 2011 for a then-British record fee for a goalkeeper of £18.9million.
However in more recent years, the 31-year-old’s performances have come under greater scrutiny and questions are being asked about whether he remains good enough to stay number one for this new era at Old Trafford.
His form, from a shot-stopping perspective at least, still remains strong and he actually showed himself to be one of the Premier League ’s best in this area last season, despite the fact that only seven of the sides conceded more league goals than United.
Goals and clean sheets though aren’t always the best way in which to measure a goalkeeper’s performance levels, because the same can be heavily dependent on the quality of the defence ahead, and United had well-publicised defensive issues throughout last season.
Yet utilising a more accurate form of goalkeeper analysis, namely expected goals against (xGA), then the high-quality of De Gea’s performances become more clear.
Post-shot xG is a metric that determines just how good a shooting opportunity is. It considers a range of factors including the distance from the goal, the angle of the shot, the pace of the effort, how it was assisted and what part of the body was used to hit the ball. This is done by utilising historical shot data.
The benefit of the same is that we are able to better analyse whether a keeper should have conceded more or fewer goals based on the shots they faced. Last season, De Gea conceded 57 goals, although three of those were own goals and are therefore removed from the total as these wouldn’t have counted as opposition shots in terms of xG.
Over that same period, De Gea had a combined post-shot xGA of 60.7 according to FBref. Therefore what this means is that the Spaniard over-performed by 6.7 goals. Only Wolves ’ Jose Sa bettered that return.
De Gea’s issue though is that modern keepers are required to be more than just good shot-stoppers, they also need to be good with the ball at their feet and quite often, an extra man in possession. This is where De Gea has too often been found wanting, as we have seen on several occasions so far this season as the 31-year-old has struggled to adjust to Ten Hag’s instructions to play out.
Ten Hag’s desire to bring in a keeper better suited to playing in such a way may now lead him to signing Leeds United’s Illan Meslier. Mirror Football understands United are looking at Meslier as a potential long-term replacement for De Gea.
Meslier joined the Yorkshire outfit just two years ago in a £5m move from FC Lorient. It would cost much more than that now to prise the 22-year-old away from Elland Road, however he does have a profile which suggests he’d be able to succeed playing within Ten Hag’s system.
Benefitting from playing for a Leeds side that likes to build from the back, it’s worth noting only four Premier League keepers had a shorter average goal-kick distance than Meslier last season. There were also only three keepers in the division who played more open-play passes. His average distance for these was the fourth-shortest across the league too.
The confidence the 22-year-old’s teammates have in him is a testament to his ball-playing capabilities, and that’s something which has received high praise from Leeds manager Jesse Marsch who considers the Frenchman to be one of the best young players he has worked with.
Earlier in the year following his side’s 0-0 draw against Crystal Palace, Marsch stated, “I said this weeks ago, for me he’s the best young goalkeeper that I’ve worked with.
“It’s always hard to make big statements like that [best in world football] but you know when you look at the fact he plays for France Under-21’s and he’s in the mix for the national team moving forward, how good France is on the international stage, you can say that his talent is big.”
Marsch also went on to pay homage to his distribution following that game, “We talked about going long to set the tone of the game but then we wanted to play out, But to be fair, Illan was brave in a lot of moments and got our centre-backs into the game.”
Even under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and later Ralf Rangnick, United had ambitions to play out and build through the defence last season. However, De Gea often showed a reluctance to play in such a way and lacked quality to do so when he tried. That’s why when compared to his league rivals, De Gea ranked much closer to the middle of the pack in those aforementioned areas in which Meslier excelled last season.
Although United would initially lose efficiency from a shot-stopping perspective if they were to bring in Meslier in place of De Gea, his influence from a wider point of view on their possession play could have a transformative effect.
