Former Newcastle United striker Alan Shearer believes that Dean Henderson deserves to be Manchester United’s first-choice goalkeeper as he has shown great promise of late, whereas David de Gea has made too many mistakes.
He believes that Henderson has capitalized on de Gea’s mistakes pretty well and the competition between the two players bodes quite well for the Red Devils.
The English show-stopper has now featured in six consecutive games for Manchester United in the Europa League, Premier League and FA Cup combined. He has majorly been the go to option in Cup games whereas he has had his share of sporadic starts in the Premier League as well.
De Gea has been out of the squad since the game against Chelsea as he had been on paternity leave and has been isolating since returning. However, Shearer believes that he isn’t an automatic pick anymore considering how Henderson has performed in the last few weeks.
“He deserves his spot, there’s no doubt about that, Dean Henderson. De Gea has made too many errors, the time was right to put him in and he certainly hasn’t disappointed. He’s kept seven clean sheets in his last eight games,” Shearer was quoted as saying by Manchester Evening News.
“He made the error a couple of weeks ago against Milan, but he’s recovered well from that. He’s been out on loan, did very well there, made the decision to come back, signed a long-term contract and there’s no doubt he deserves to be playing,” he added.
Now that de Gea has returned, Shearer believes that he will have to wait for his chance as Henderson has done everything right to retain his place in the XI. Unless he commits a big mistake, Shearer doesn’t see de Gea making it back to the first team.
As far as Manchester United are considered, they are out of the FA Cup after losing 3-1 to Leicester City in the quarterfinals. They are 14 points behind Premier League leaders Manchester City with a game in hand and will be playing in the semifinals of the Europa League up next.
