The inquest into Manchester United’s disappointing season began as soon as David de Gea saw his decisive penalty saved in the Europa League final shootout on Wednesday night.
The Red Devils needed victory in this tournament to validate this campaign as some sort of a success – yet they went down 11-10 to Villarreal in the lottery of penalties after the match ended 1-1 following extra-time.
It would be unfair to blame De Gea for his failure from 12 yards – nobody would have expected the shootout to go 22 penalties long – but there is fair scrutiny on his inability to save spot-kicks.
David de Gea’s abysmal penalty-saving record continued on Wednesday night vs Villarreal
The Spaniard was unable to save any of Villarreal’s 11 penalties during the Europa League final
He was then the unfortunate one to see his shot saved as Manchester United lost the shootout
De Gea walks past the Europa League after United blew the chance to win silverware this term
The heartache in Gdansk has only exacerbated De Gea’s awful penalty-saving record.
To put it into full context, De Gea has now conceded the last 40 he’s faced in regulation time and shootouts for United and Spain (as demonstrated by the below graphic from theanalyst.com)
In fact, his last save came five years ago when he denied Romelu Lukaku from 12 yards in the second half of United’s 2-1 FA Cup semi-final win over Everton on April 23, 2016.
United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s in-game management – a routine criticism of his – was baffling against Villarreal as he appeared reluctant to freshen up his clearly tiring side in extra-time.
With De Gea’s penalty record so poor, Solskjaer admitted post-match that it did cross his mind to replace the 30-year-old in the dying embers for Dean Henderson.
The Analyst’s graphic shows the 40-straight penalties to beat De Gea for club and country
De Gea got the nod over Dean Henderson – despite the latter’s better penalty-saving record
‘You go through every scenario, of course, and it [De Gea’s penalty record] had crossed my mind in the build-up to the game but we were confident in David and prepared,’ he said.
‘Anything can happen in a penalty shootout. I stuck with the keeper who played all of the game.
‘I’ve got to say the penalty shootout was high quality, but we didn’t do enough in the 120 minutes to score more goals and that’s the disappointing bit.
‘We had pressure, we had moments where we felt if we can just kick on a little bit now we can get a goal. But we just couldn’t.’
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but Solskjaer should have considered doing this. During the actual shootout, De Gea didn’t ooze any confidence at all while attempting to save all 11 of the Villarreal penalties to ultimately no avail.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer admitted post-game he did consider bringing Henderson on for the pens
Looking at De Gea’s penalty record solely in the Premier League – it makes for grim reading. Since the start of the 2014-15 season, United’s No 1 has saved just one penalty – and that was against Leighton Baines on October 5, 2014 as United won 2-1 at Old Trafford.
He has faced 24 spot-kicks since 2014-15, meaning he has a save percentage of just 4.17 per cent – the lowest of anyone in England’s top-flight across this period.
However, it should be noted that he did deny Wilfried Zaha from 12 yards in their curtain-raiser against Crystal Palace this season before VAR adjudged he was off his line and ordered a re-take – which Zaha duly scored.
Petr Cech fared slightly better while at Arsenal with a 6.25 per cent save rate – although he only stopped one spot-kick from 16 attempts.
Mat Ryan has the third lowest during this period – saving two penalties from 17 attempts for a figure of 11.76 per cent at Brighton.
Only Leicester’s Kasper Schmeichel (32) and Tottenham captain Hugo Lloris (27) have faced more Premier League penalties in that span than De Gea. Schmeichel has a 12.5 per cent success rate at facing penalties (27 from 32), while Lloris’ is slightly higher at 12.9 per cent (25 from 31) – although it must be noted that both goalkeepers have seen penalty takers miss the target completely.
De Gea’s last penalty save in the Premier League came against Everton on October 5, 2014
De Gea’s abysmal stats read worse when you compare it to Henderson’s.
The 24-year-old hasn’t been exposed to the prolonged level of top-level football that his team-mate has, but he fares better.
Since making his Football League debut on loan at Grimsby Town in 2016-17, the England international has faced 15 penalties – saving four of them. This equates to a save percentage of 26.67 per cent – six times higher than De Gea.
Sportsmail columnist Chris Sutton said Solskjaer ‘missed a trick’ in not substituting Henderson before the shootout in Gdansk.
If this was to be De Gea’s final game at United it was a sorry way to bow out after 10 years of service. However, it all boils down to Solskjaer’s lack of in-game management. This as much on him as it is the Spaniard goalkeeper.
If this proves to be the 30-year-old’s final game for the Red Devils it’s a sorry way to bow out
| Player | Team | Penalties Faced | Penalties Saved | Penalty Goals Conceded | Saved/Faced % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| David de Gea | Manchester United | 24 | 1 | 23 | 4.17% |
| Petr Cech | Arsenal | 16 | 1 | 15 | 6.25% |
| Mat Ryan | Brighton | 17 | 2 | 15 | 11.76% |
| Kasper Schmeichel | Leicester City | 32 | 4 | 27 | 12.50% |
| Bernd Leno | Arsenal | 16 | 2 | 14 | 12.50% |
| Hugo Lloris | Tottenham | 31 | 4 | 25 | 12.90% |
| Ederson | Manchester City | 17 | 3 | 14 | 17.65% |
| Lukasz Fabianski | Swansea City | 18 | 4 | 13 | 22.22% |
| Jordan Pickford | Everton | 17 | 4 | 10 | 23.53% |
| Adrian | West Ham United | 16 | 5 | 10 | 31.25% |
