Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is wrong about David De Gea, but he’s also right…

“When form drops for six months it's a blip but when it goes on for a year you start to worry. When it goes over two years it becomes more permanent.”

Those are the words of former Manchester United and England defender Gary Neville, speaking about goalkeeper David De Gea on The Gary Neville Podcast. Not as raw or brutal as his old team-mate Roy Keane on Sky Sports last Friday but no less damning.

De Gea has become the dominant discussion topic surrounding Manchester United right now and unsurprisingly it was put to manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer before Wednesday’s match with Sheffield United.

“He isn’t making errors you see time and time again, he has been working consistently hard in training, I’m very pleased with his work,” Solskjaer said at his pre-match press conference.

“He’s conceded two goals in the last seven he’s played for us – the Everton one [in a 1-1 draw in March] is a freak one maybe.”

The topic is particularly charged before Wednesday’s game because Chris Wilder’s side have been the home for Red Devils keeper Dean Henderson for the past two seasons. The 23-year-old won’t be playing on Wednesday due to the (ridiculous) terms of his loan agreement but Solskjaer said that he expected the paperwork to go through imminently that would allow Henderson to stay with Sheffield United until the new end of the season.

Henderson has been excellent for Sheffield United, first helping them win promotion and then in their unlikely push for European football. The Blades have the second-best defensive record this season and no keeper has kept more clean sheets than Henderson’s 11. Perhaps crucially in today’s modern age Henderson has also shown himself to be excellent with the ball at his feet, now a crucial skill for all goalkeepers.

This has led to a clamouring from United fans for De Gea to be moved on and Henderson to be installed as the club’s new number one. This was also put to Solskjaer on Tuesday.

“It’s a different job,” Solskjaer replied.

“He’s [Henderson] got different roles and for me the two years he’s had [at Sheffield United] have been fantastic for his development. He’s played with and against men, played in the Championship, and he plays in a team that plays exciting football and the stats show he’s proved worthy of a few points.

“He’s learning all the time. One day he’ll be England and United No 1 and he needs to keep developing.”

There’s a tired cliché about playing against men in there, but actually Solskjaer makes a good point. It is a different skill being a goalkeeper for a club like Manchester United and a club like Sheffield United. The mental side of the game is crucial for any goalkeeper. It is a brutally unforgiving and lonely position. But when you reach the very top it becomes even more important. Sometimes you might only have to do one thing in the 90 minutes, be that a save or rushing out of your goal to intercept a ball played in behind your defence.

Concentration is vital and if you don’t have it you can be exposed. Think about someone like Petr Cech during the first couple of seasons under Jose Mourinho. That defence was rock-solid and his concentration had to be absolute, particularly given how many games they won by a narrow score-line. For some goalkeepers it can come and go, for others they may never have it, and that will limit the level they can play at. For some keepers they thrive on being kept busy, and having to make plenty of saves, when that action dries up the adjustment can be difficult. Joe Hart is a great example of this. At Birmingham City and in the early days at Manchester City he was excellent, particularly in the big matches when City’s defence was more exposed, but as the team grew he suffered. It was no surprise to see Pep Guardiola trade him out for a player with more experience at the highest level, as well as of course being better with the ball at his feet. That Claudio Bravo himself made a number of high-profile errors is not a flaw in City’s logic, more their execution.

All of which brings us back to De Gea and Henderson. You’ve probably seen the stat doing the round that since the start of last season De Gea has made seven errors leading to a goal, more than any other player. There are two sides to this coin. On the one hand this stat can be a bit misleading as it focuses on goalkeepers and often football isn’t that simple, there are ten other players on their team. However the number is still alarming and it confirms what a lot of people believe, De Gea’s form has been well below par for a while now.

Solskjaer saying De Gea is the best in the world is a nice show of support from a manager but it’s wildly inaccurate. De Gea isn’t one of the best three, maybe five, keepers in the Premier League right now, let alone the world. He was once a force of will in the United goal, now he’s a weak link opposition teams are looking to expose. How much is that down to United’s team not being the porous mess they were under David Moyes et al, where De Gea was called into action more regularly. It’s hard to say but something has changed. De Gea is approaching a decade in Manchester, perhaps he just needs new scenery, or perhaps this is the beginning of the decline of a player who has been playing high-level first-team football since he was a teenager.

But does that mean Henderson is automatically ready to come in and take his place? Not necessarily. Manchester United allow slightly fewer shots per game compared to Sheffield United (10.5 spg versus 11.5 spg) but their possession is very different. Manchester United are seventh in the Premier League with an average of 53.5% whilst Sheffield United are down in 16th averaging 45.4%. Put simply at Manchester United there will be far more stretches of the game where Henderson has nothing to do.

As Solskjaer has pointed out Henderson has developed a lot in the past couple of years at Sheffield United and he is just 23. But should that be used as a stick to delay his return or a reason to accelerate it? Henderson has shown such encouraging development that surely he should be able to prove that he can grow even further and build the skills that a top-level goalkeeper requires?

Ultimately you cannot blame Solskjaer and United for playing it safe. Right now they have Schrödinger's goalkeeper; Henderson is simultaneous capable and not capable of being their guy, they won’t know until they find out. But what happens if they decide to find out, it turns out he isn’t capable and suddenly they’ve lost De Gea and have a goalkeeper who isn’t good enough? These are the reasons why those at the top of big clubs get paid a lot of money but if De Gea keeps making mistakes then the decision might be taken out of their hand…