Get off De Geas back two mistakes dont make him bad
As a manager who, with one eye shut, can normally identify a decent footballer from 500 paces, Sir Alex Ferguson seems to have a blind spot when it comes to goalkeepers.
Manchester United fans of a certain vintage will still remember with a shudder the Old Trafford careers of stoppers Massimo Taibi and Jim Leighton.
Well stoppers is probably the wrong term to describe those two custodians. The pair of them stopped very little during their time at the Theatre of Dreams.
But the goalkeeping disaster of Fergies reign which stands out most vividly in my mind is that of Fabien Barthez, who arrived at Old Trafford from Monaco in a blaze of publicity as the world entered the 21st century.
Why vivid? Because Frenchman Barthez was a genuine marquee signing. He was widely regarded as the best goalkeeper on the planet at that time a World Cup winner with France, who had conceded fewer goals in World Cup finals than any of his international rivals.
Sir Taggart, we all believed, had found the perfect replacement for the departed Peter Schmeichel. How wrong we all were.
There is an age-old theory in football which states that to be a goalkeeper you have to be either very brave or very mad. Barthez fitted the latter to a tee.
For a start, he looked as mad as a hatter, a bit like Magwitch out of Great Expectations. He was as bald as bald could be. Ive seen more hair on an egg.
And his appearance wasnt deceptive. On the field, he was as mad as a bag of snakes. His world-class saves were matched equally by his world-class blunders.
Barthez might have known what he was doing but the defenders in front of him certainly didnt. So Fergie was left with a crazed keeper and a back four on the verge of a collective nervous breakdown.
It was a marriage made in hell with only one logical outcome. And, after four turbulent years, the divorce of Manchester United and Fabien Barthez was formally announced.
!
It strikes me that when clubs sign a goalkeeper they dont known what theyve got until they get him if you know what I mean. My mind goes back to the days when I was masquerading as a professional footballer with the Blessed Blues back in the Swinging Sixties.
Joe Mercer was the manager, with Malcolm Allison his assistant, and both took a shine to the young Barnsley goalkeeper Alan Ogley.
Alan was in his early 20s. He was as strong as an ox and as fit as a fiddle and, as expected, he sailed through his medical. But, as we were to discover, the doctors obviously didnt check out his eyesight.
The first clue emerged when he pitched up for duty at Maine Road. He was wearing glasses with the thickest lenses you will ever have seen. Glasses? They looked more like binoculars!
Naturally, we immediately nicknamed him Mr Magoo after the visually-impaired cartoon character and the moniker fitted him perfectly.
You see without his bins our new goalkeeper was as blind as a bat. He could barely see his hand in front of his face without his glasses on.
Not that it mattered. The club doctor fitted Magoo up with specially made contact lenses that gave him the eyesight that a golden eagle would have been proud of.
Then came a midweek reserve team game against Wolves at Molineux. It was misty, cold and drizzly. The attendance was two pensioners, who got in for nothing, and a stray dog.
Back in the away dressing room, pre-match a disaster was unfolding. Magoos contact lenses were not in the teams kit. They had been left behind at Maine Road.
Magoo asked the match ref if he could play in his super thick glasses. The ref dismissed his appeal on the spot, though he did offer to put a pea in the ball if that would help.
Magoo scornfully rejected that suggestion and marched out to meet the Wolves without glasses or contact lenses. For obvious reasons, he walked down the tunnel holding the hand of centre-half Mike Batty. < br>We lost the match 2-0. Magoo had no idea that Wolves had scored. There had been no reaction from the two home geriatric supporters, who had probably nodded off or possibly died while the game was in progress.
To spare Magoos feelings, we told him we had won the match 1-0 courtesy of a late penalty. He went home that night a happy, if visually-impaired, young goalkeeper.
So that heart-warming tale from yesteryear brings us nicely to Uniteds youthful custodian David De Gea, who has not made the most auspicious of starts to his new career at the Theatre of Dreams.
In the Community Shield derby and in the opening Premier League match at West Brom, the 20-year-old Spaniard conceded goals which you would have expected an 18m goalkeeper to have saved comfortably.
Already hes being likened to the likes of Taibi, Leighton and Barthez as the latest of Fergies dodgy keepers. To refer to him in those terms after just two mistakes is ludicrous.
I dont know if De Gea will turn out to be disastrous, mediocre, or absolutely brilliant for his new club. Only time will answer that question.
What I do know is that two mistakes doesnt equal a bad goalkeeper. And I saw a save the kid pulled off to deny Adam Johnson a goal in the Community Shield which any keeper in this country would have been delighted to claim as their own.
So lets get off the boys back, shall we? Dont lets try to ruin a new career before its even got going. And Ive got this inner feeling that in De Gea Fergie has found a good un.
Yes the boy needs to toughen up but the Premier League will do that for him automatically.
The critics claimed that Schmeichel was out of his depth after his first few games with the Reds.
Those same critics insisted that Edwin van der Sar was too old to forge a worthwhile career at Old Trafford.
Those know-it-all critics couldnt have been more wrong. Goalkeepers are a different breed from the outfi! eld play ers. For, good or bad, they have a habit of proving people wrong.
The youthful new custodian at Old Trafford already has something to prove. My guess is that, in time, hell prove his worth and then some.
What do you think? Have your say.
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Manchester United fans of a certain vintage will still remember with a shudder the Old Trafford careers of stoppers Massimo Taibi and Jim Leighton.
Well stoppers is probably the wrong term to describe those two custodians. The pair of them stopped very little during their time at the Theatre of Dreams.
But the goalkeeping disaster of Fergies reign which stands out most vividly in my mind is that of Fabien Barthez, who arrived at Old Trafford from Monaco in a blaze of publicity as the world entered the 21st century.
Why vivid? Because Frenchman Barthez was a genuine marquee signing. He was widely regarded as the best goalkeeper on the planet at that time a World Cup winner with France, who had conceded fewer goals in World Cup finals than any of his international rivals.
Sir Taggart, we all believed, had found the perfect replacement for the departed Peter Schmeichel. How wrong we all were.
There is an age-old theory in football which states that to be a goalkeeper you have to be either very brave or very mad. Barthez fitted the latter to a tee.
For a start, he looked as mad as a hatter, a bit like Magwitch out of Great Expectations. He was as bald as bald could be. Ive seen more hair on an egg.
And his appearance wasnt deceptive. On the field, he was as mad as a bag of snakes. His world-class saves were matched equally by his world-class blunders.
Barthez might have known what he was doing but the defenders in front of him certainly didnt. So Fergie was left with a crazed keeper and a back four on the verge of a collective nervous breakdown.
It was a marriage made in hell with only one logical outcome. And, after four turbulent years, the divorce of Manchester United and Fabien Barthez was formally announced.
!
It strikes me that when clubs sign a goalkeeper they dont known what theyve got until they get him if you know what I mean. My mind goes back to the days when I was masquerading as a professional footballer with the Blessed Blues back in the Swinging Sixties.
Joe Mercer was the manager, with Malcolm Allison his assistant, and both took a shine to the young Barnsley goalkeeper Alan Ogley.
Alan was in his early 20s. He was as strong as an ox and as fit as a fiddle and, as expected, he sailed through his medical. But, as we were to discover, the doctors obviously didnt check out his eyesight.
The first clue emerged when he pitched up for duty at Maine Road. He was wearing glasses with the thickest lenses you will ever have seen. Glasses? They looked more like binoculars!
Naturally, we immediately nicknamed him Mr Magoo after the visually-impaired cartoon character and the moniker fitted him perfectly.
You see without his bins our new goalkeeper was as blind as a bat. He could barely see his hand in front of his face without his glasses on.
Not that it mattered. The club doctor fitted Magoo up with specially made contact lenses that gave him the eyesight that a golden eagle would have been proud of.
Then came a midweek reserve team game against Wolves at Molineux. It was misty, cold and drizzly. The attendance was two pensioners, who got in for nothing, and a stray dog.
Back in the away dressing room, pre-match a disaster was unfolding. Magoos contact lenses were not in the teams kit. They had been left behind at Maine Road.
Magoo asked the match ref if he could play in his super thick glasses. The ref dismissed his appeal on the spot, though he did offer to put a pea in the ball if that would help.
Magoo scornfully rejected that suggestion and marched out to meet the Wolves without glasses or contact lenses. For obvious reasons, he walked down the tunnel holding the hand of centre-half Mike Batty. < br>We lost the match 2-0. Magoo had no idea that Wolves had scored. There had been no reaction from the two home geriatric supporters, who had probably nodded off or possibly died while the game was in progress.
To spare Magoos feelings, we told him we had won the match 1-0 courtesy of a late penalty. He went home that night a happy, if visually-impaired, young goalkeeper.
So that heart-warming tale from yesteryear brings us nicely to Uniteds youthful custodian David De Gea, who has not made the most auspicious of starts to his new career at the Theatre of Dreams.
In the Community Shield derby and in the opening Premier League match at West Brom, the 20-year-old Spaniard conceded goals which you would have expected an 18m goalkeeper to have saved comfortably.
Already hes being likened to the likes of Taibi, Leighton and Barthez as the latest of Fergies dodgy keepers. To refer to him in those terms after just two mistakes is ludicrous.
I dont know if De Gea will turn out to be disastrous, mediocre, or absolutely brilliant for his new club. Only time will answer that question.
What I do know is that two mistakes doesnt equal a bad goalkeeper. And I saw a save the kid pulled off to deny Adam Johnson a goal in the Community Shield which any keeper in this country would have been delighted to claim as their own.
So lets get off the boys back, shall we? Dont lets try to ruin a new career before its even got going. And Ive got this inner feeling that in De Gea Fergie has found a good un.
Yes the boy needs to toughen up but the Premier League will do that for him automatically.
The critics claimed that Schmeichel was out of his depth after his first few games with the Reds.
Those same critics insisted that Edwin van der Sar was too old to forge a worthwhile career at Old Trafford.
Those know-it-all critics couldnt have been more wrong. Goalkeepers are a different breed from the outfi! eld play ers. For, good or bad, they have a habit of proving people wrong.
The youthful new custodian at Old Trafford already has something to prove. My guess is that, in time, hell prove his worth and then some.
What do you think? Have your say.
Tweet
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