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Henderson v De Gea
Look, Dean Henderson has done well, in many ways he has done everything you can ask of him. He has returned to Manchester United, aware that he will continue to be number two behind David De Gea.
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Tuesday night against Luton Town he kept a clean sheet and made a good late save when the score was 1-0. However, people cannot get carried away. As my colleague Ben Snowball alluded to earlier, it was a good stop, nothing more and nothing less, and against Luton Town.
What Henderson deserves credit for is coming back to United in the first place and challenging De Gea, as long as it’s for the right reasons. Now what I mean by ‘for the right reasons’ is this: what I’d like to think is that Henderson has looked at De Gea, a very experienced goalkeeper, and has thought to himself that he can compete and eventually beat him as history club’s first choice. I hope that was his motivating factor, not the great new contract he landed, otherwise he should have gone back on loan to Sheffield United.
However, if you are up to the challenge, and I have no reason to think otherwise, then you deserve a lot of credit. It’s easy these days for players to be happy, to feel comfortable. It would have been very easy for him to return to Sheffield United, where he knows everyone and is the absolute first choice, but for him it is fair play to test himself.
I don’t think that that much credit can be given to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer or to Manchester United as a whole. They have put themselves, and De Gea, in a very uncomfortable situation. We all know that De Gea will be back in the starting lineup for Saturday’s game against Brighton, but what if he makes a mistake? Every goal they concede now will be analyzed more than before.
Even if United win, you know that Solskjaer will be under pressure from fans and the media to make a change. It’s tough for goalkeepers, you can’t make as many mistakes as outfield players, and now De Gea will be under the microscope more than ever.
Dean Henderson saves Luton Town
Image Credit: Getty Images
What about England?
It also has interesting ramifications internationally. People start asking questions about Jordan Pickford and I have to say I was never convinced. It’s a flapper and people can point to its layout, and it has a great left peg, but a today’s keeper has to have the whole package. I’m not sure Carlo Ancelotti is convinced and that question can be extended to Gareth Southgate.
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Of course, it all depends on what’s going on with Henderson, or maybe that doesn’t matter as much. In my time, there was no possibility of being chosen for your country if you didn’t play regularly for your club. Now that might not matter much, particularly if Henderson has enough cup competition games under his belt. Obviously, ideally, he would be playing Premier League football.
Man Utd needs a middle center in command, do you already have it?
Going back to United as a whole and it’s frustrating to see so many holes in this team so late in the window. They are now linked to Alex Telles from Porto and I have been saying they need a left back for a long time. Luke Shaw has done his best, but his powers of recovery are not up to the mark.
I also think they need a dominant central midfielder who can lead the defense. You have an £ 80 million player in Harry Maguire, who I think is only really captain because of his price. There needs to be someone who can organize and put everyone in the right position too, that could help De Gea too.
You want someone like Steve Bruce, Jaap Staam or Nemanja Vidic there. Even when I think of Ronnie Johnson or Wes Brown, either of them in their prime, it would make this United defense 30-40% better if you put them in Maguire’s place.
For me you are captain because you have something on you, not because of what it costs you, especially when you were not captain in your previous club.
Harry maguire
Image Credit: Getty Images
It’s hard to find someone like Virgil van Dijk, who could have played at any time, but does United already have the answer within their ranks? I’m not necessarily convinced of internal promotion given that so far it hasn’t worked with what they’ve tried, but if you’re going to go down that path, why don’t you give Chris Smalling a chance?
He took a chance at Roma last year, but it turned out to be a great move for him and he will have come back as a better player. It has to be difficult for him to see how much they have spent on central defender and one would have to wonder if his head is in the right place, especially since he has not been allowed to return to Roma. It’s hard for him when he hears Southgate say he can’t play from behind and then you see Maguire.
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