Park Ji-sung @ Manchester United 2011-2012 Thread [R]

De Gea reminded me of JSR circa World Cup 2010, haha.

he was highly touted and proven. not on a stage like United though.

who's the backup again?

Don't quote me but I thought he only had 1 year between the sticks at Athletico. If that's the case I don't think it warrants the transfer fee when it's probably far less risky to snag an average EPL keeper. Shay Given is one of the best keepers playing in England, he's young enough to play a few years.

Anyway only time will tell if United did a nice piece of business with the young keeper.

Wait, I thought I played you...

That's not enough for a club that is at the upper echelons of the elite clubs. This move reminds me of the time they bought Tim Howard from NY. But DeGea is much more expensive and much younger.

There were proven young No. 1s out there like Skeltenburg, Nuer and Lloris that were all available in this window. And proven as in WC and Champions League proven. I can see this all end in tears.

DeGea would have been the right choice if VDS were still playing for 2 more years and he had time to ease into the squad.

Btw, I obviously love Lloris. Absolutely love his composure. He reminds me a lot of VDS on how calmly he leads his defenders. He's also great at all elements of goal keeping. He was a ready made replacement for VDS.

If they had to spend the money then it would have been wiser to go with the more experienced Lloris.

To be fair, de Gea is only twenty. He's got a lot of developing to do. But I do agree that there should be a more experienced first choice keeper before fielding a twenty year-old and Lloris would've been perfect.

Exact thing I thought of after the last couple of weeks. Howard ended up ok but of course it was not with Man Utd. Stay tuned.

I felt they didn't give De Gea enough minutes in the pre season.

De Gea was overhyped. I don't think he is worth his contract but he has the potential to be worth his contract within a couple years. Who knows... Maybe SAF is thinking long term.

I actually thought Lindegaard looked pretty good in the preseason friendlies. He made some impressive saves. I was impressed with Stekelenburg, during WC2010. I thought Fergie might make a play for him.

I'm wondering, what's best for a young GK's development? Getting bombarded by shots playing for a weak team (on loan or otherwise), sitting on the bench of a class squad and learning from a proven world class keeper, or getting thrown into the fire right away like de Gea is now? Or somewhere in between?

But at 20, how much more proven can he be?

If they wanted to buy a 20 year old, he needed to be as ready as Iker Casillas was back 10 years ago... Otherwise, he's just too young and inexperienced.

Btw, he's under heavy fire already...

From the objective:

To the snarky:

20 years ago a young man named Peter Schmeichel came to Man Utd and was bombarded early on.

What's your point? How is Schmeichel's situation analagous to DeGea? He was 29 years old or so when Manchester bought him.

He was almost 30 when he hooked up with United.

My point is that I trust in SAF and the Man Utd management's judgement. If de Gea is as talented as they say, I'm willing to write these last two games off as due to nervousness. I mentioned Schmeichel as an example just to illustrate that even the most talented of keepers can initially have rough performances when moving to a big team such as United.

He was actually 27, but I'm not directly comparing them anyway. Again, I'm just saying any talented keeper can struggle early on.

United had a few lean years after the big Dane retired and these were experienced keepers including Barthez. Anything can happen but since keepers don't usually peak until their thirties and can play until late thirties/early forties I just don't know what the rush was paying a lot of money for a kid.

I would have bought someone more experienced. Van der Sar didn't move to United from Fulham until he was about 34.

I think people are over-reacting with the whole De Gea thing, The English media just want to jump on him as some BS proof that the EPL is tougher than La Liga. All this "Welcome to England" crap is boring already.

It would have made more sense to get Lloris but i think they were worried about missing out on De Gea somewhere down the line. I think he'll come good and prove to perfectly capable of filling VDS' gloves. He's just gonna take time to settle which is something Man U should have anticipated.

I remember reading that SAF was still troubled by not pulling the trigger for Petr Cech. And that was the impetus for going for DeGea. He didn't want to miss out on another GK that he thought was the one just b/c the GK was too young.

We'll have to wait and see how the season pans out. But Peter Gill from f365 does have a point when he notes there may be fundamental flaws to DeGea's goalkeeping skills. And his point on how ruthlessly SAF gets rid of goalkeepers after a string of mistakes resonates as well. Either way, it's a massive gamble.

Seriously a gamble with this kid imo.
Were they hoping for a Chincharito of goalkeeping?

Too untested to be United's Keeper. We shall see in the rest of this season.

It's going to be hard to fill the shoes of one of the greatest goalkeepers who i've ever witnessed.

I'm not that worried. Lindegaard looked pretty solid.