Sugchester. De Gea is not experienced. You failed to mention last season he let in 10 goals more than Athletico Madrids overall average. Before you say Man United have a better defence. That can and cannot be a justified response, opposition players will play on his lack of premiership experience and attempt to unsettle him. I reckon he may be a little wet behind the ears to handle some of the tricks opposition strikers will pull on him. The likes of Drogba and Davies will be their uncompromising selves..and thats not mentioning centre halves who will be licking their lips at the thoughts of clattering into him.
They will without question be there or thereabouts but due to the change of keeper and this is the only reason,as its so unsettling, I don't think they will be champions. At one time it used to take 6 months to blood a keeper, thats how long it took Liverpool in 1981 to blood Bruce Grobbelaar. Brucie was already in England in the lower leagues with Crewe. I believe now it takes longer than 6 months to blood a keeper.
Maybe, but without a player like Sneijder we have fantastic team balance. We have no player we rely on too much to create chances and all the team does their own fair share of the workload which worked fantastically well last season and kept the team consistent which often wins premierships. I admit we were a little short of a creative spark last season but United have a winning mentality no other team can boast and very capable strikers and wingers coupled with one of the best defences in the league. The only part we are short of is midfield creation which hopefully we may remedy. I doubt De Gea will perform at all badly or shakily. He will not perform to the massively high standards that Van der Sar did, so much so that he outperformed any other keeper in Europe and he will be a massive loss. But United have lost massive players before and always come through.
I think Kenny's comments about the owners might've a way of saying, "They've already done enough to prove themselves," to prepare fans in case we can't sign any more players due to not enough players leaving.
Yeah it was the same with Petr Cech, he was young and came in and adapted straight away to be one of the best in England.
Was Reina a massive success from the off in the 2005/2006 season. He had his moments when he was marvellous but if I remember correctly he was prone to the odd mistake and had a tendency to punch rather than catch,which was something that he had to eliminate. He got a away with it in a majority of occasions but there were times he didn't. Reina was 23 when he was introduced to the premiership and was Barcelona keeper at 19 and was first choice Villarreal keeper for 3 seasons prior to joining Liverpool. He also had 200 Villarreal appearances. How many full seasons has De Gea had? I still think that he will be found out for a short while.
He actually had 136 appearances for Villareal. De Gea has been first choice Athletico keeper for 2 seasons.
Nobody is writing Man United off, they might and this is just a might struggle having to introduce a new keeper that has no premiership experience.
Yes but you are classing them in a bracket below Man City and Chelsea, when neither teams have strengthened much after last season where United won the league by 9 points.
Reina was fantastic when he joined, didn't he win the golden gloves in his first year? De Gea will not be the reason United if don't win the league, it will be their central midfield
Sorry KPR and KPH but this season I truly believe that it is gross over confidence. They fell over the line last season and that was with the assistance of Chelsea and Arsenal who threw away great chances to win it. I don't see that they have significantly strengthened their squad so far. I also believe that the absence of the symbols of their winning mentality - Neville, Scholes VDS and to a lesser degree Giggs - will be seen to have an impact. Additionally, I feel that the CL final did great harm to Ferguson psychologically. I accept that all of this is assumption but it is my critical appraisal of their situation with as little bias as possible. Hence my claim of over-confidence. To some degree I also draw upon the similarities to the attitudes and comments of the media and supporters when Liverpool fell off their perch.
Prior to every season I see people putting their argument forward as to why they think Man Utd will struggle. Every season they end up being proven wrong.
Neville barely played last season, and he was poor when he did. Scholes didn't play much, and I can't really remember him having a good game. Fair enough VDS but that's already been adressed. And Giggs is still playing next season. Oh so YOU feel that Ferguson has been damaged psychologically... I didn't realise you were his personal psychologist and biographer who had stepped deep into the man's psychi. There is no evidence of this, you've just made it up. Possibly, the difference is: We have one of the best managers ever, if not the best. We have a rounded squad of players that has won title after title. We have made additions to the squad which have strengthened it's weaknesses and will hopefully address the midfield problem too. There are so many differences it's pointless listing them.
There is definitely over-confidence. Petr Cech was a one-off, He joined a settled side that more or less had the same defence on a continous basis. This gave him confidence. Man Uniteds back-four may change from one game to the next. It may not be settled this may be due to Rio Ferdinands frequent injuries and Rafaels tendency to be erratic. If De Gea has a settled back four in front of him, one that is well drilled,it will make life easy for him, if it changes frequently it may unsettle him. I wouldn't be overconfident by any means.