David de Gea's fellow professionals at Manchester United might have voted him their player of the season, but the goalkeeper remains in the international wilderness despite his club displays.
The 31-year-old enjoyed a good season, making 128 saves in 38 Premier League games, and his teammates clearly recognised that but for the Spaniard, their dreadful season could have been worse. This was United's worst season defensively since 1978/79 but their long-serving goalkeeper still emerged with credit, although this was a campaign that in a way played to De Gea's strengths.
He is an excellent shot-stopper and he had a lot of shots to try and stop as United fell apart under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and then Ralf Rangnick. He was given plenty of opportunities to excel.
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Those saves haven't helped his international prospects, however. De Gea hasn't been capped by Spain since October 2020, when his mistake led to Viktor Tsygankov's winning goal for Ukraine in a Nations League fixture.
Luis Enrique launched a passionate defence of his goalkeeper that night, telling critics that "blaming De Gea is already a bad habit", but he's not picked him to play for Spain since then and in March he left him out of the squad entirely.
That pattern has continued for June's Nations League double headers against Czech Republic and Switzerland, with Athletic Bilbao's Unai Simon staying as No. 1, while Premier League pair Robert Sanchez (Brighton) and David Raya (Brentford) are ahead of De Gea.
You wouldn't find many pundits who would claim that Sanchez or Raya are better goalkeepers than De Gea, but one area they are better is with the ball at their feet. Behind Ederson and Alisson, they might well be the best passers in the league, indeed Raya is so good that Jurgen Klopp said he should wear No. 10 on his back.
It is those attributes that have led Enrique to pick them ahead of De Gea in his squad.
"A goalkeeper should start the play and generate the first superiority, they must dominate the aerial play," he said before Spain's game against Czech Republic on Sunday.
“I need a goalkeeper that transmits peace and calmness to me, that doesn’t mean they won’t make mistakes, errors are part of football. What they generate I like a lot.”
For all De Gea's excellence, his ability to "start the play" — distribute accurately with his feet — isn't a significant strength, at least it hasn't been in recent United teams. But that might have to change under Erik ten Hag.
Like most modern coaches Ten Hag wants a proactive goalkeeper, who can not only start the play but also command a high line, sweeping up behind a defence and coming to claim high balls where possible, starting fast attacks.
That's not something you'd readily associate with De Gea at the moment, but that is what he needs to do to have a chance of adding to his 45 caps for Spain and maybe Enrique spelling out his demands so clearly will help.
He will begin next season as United's No. 1 but will know he might need to change to keep that status for the long-term as well. Enrique has added to that expectation and De Gea now has the summer to prepare for a new approach in 2022/23.
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