David De Gea

If there is any part of the pitch that is under the ownership of one player, then it’s surely the penalty area - the domain of the goalkeeper. Over eight hundred square metres of turf that a goalkeeper must police in order to prevent a goal being scored in his net.

Any goal-keeping manual worth its salt will refer to ‘commanding one’s area’ as a fundamental element to the job.  Top Manchester United number 1’s of recent memory, Edwin Van Der Sar, and before him the great Peter Schmeichel, were masters of this, letting strikers (and even their own defenders) know whose penalty area they were trespassing in.

David De Gea, the current incumbent of the goalkeeping shirt at Old Trafford, has not been grabbing the headlines this season. Apart from his moment of madness against Sunderland in the League Cup, his performances have generally been good. The reasons for Manchester United’s plight this season are manifold, but David De Gea is not one of them.

Having said that, why is David De Gea consistently rooted to his goal-line? He comes for absolutely nothing. And I’m not talking about crosses. The ball bounces and the defender wants to let it roll back to the keeper, they look up, expecting De Gea to be racing in to collect the ball, and yet the keeper has not moved from his goal-line.

Is it a fear of getting caught up in the melee? Gaza is one of most densely populated strips of land in the world. If David De Gea’s penalty area had the same population density as the Gaza Strip, 2500 people would be living there. But it isn’t in Gaza, in fact it isn’t even remotely busy.

Maybe he fears to come out of his six yard box? There are such things as no-go areas on this planet – Brazilian favelas and neighbourhoods of Northern Ireland at the peak of ‘The Troubles’ to name but two. David De Gea must accept that his personal safety is not endangered by straying from his goal-line.

David De Gea must learn to love the furthest reaches of his penalty area. Maybe he could make it more homely for himself - spruce it up a little by planting some begonias in the corners.