De Gea hopes Reds' season goes the distance

Erik ten Hag's men could potentially play another 16 games across all competition for the remainder of 2022/23, nine Premier League matches with possibly five Europa League fixtures and two Emirates FA Cup ties if the Reds make it to the final of both cup competitions.

During the game against Everton, United welcomed the return of Christian Eriksen, after the Denmark international recovered from an injury he sustained in January against Reading in the FA Cup, to boost the squad.

However, we did seem to suffer a blow when Marcus Rashford was brought off with 10 minutes left against the Toffees. The forward was unable to continue and had to be replaced by Wout Weghorst.

Speaking with MUTV after the game, De Gea spoke about Ten Hag’s message that everyone will be needed if we want to play the maximum number of games this season and push to bring more silverware back to the Theatre of Dreams.

“As the manager said, everyone is going to be needed at some point because we have many, many games," he said. "It is difficult to recover from so many games. But like I've said, everyone is ready to play, everyone is training well. So that makes the difference.

“It doesn’t matter who is playing in the line-up. Everyone is ready to play, even people from the bench today again have a really big impact. I think we have a really good squad, people coming back from injuries. It is great to see everyone in the same direction and fighting for the goal.”

United have had a busy last week, first travelling to St James' Park as the Reds lost 2-0 to Newcastle United, before returning to Old Trafford for back-to-back home wins against Brentford and Everton.

Ten Hag’s side put on a masterclass in attacking football against Sean Dyche’s Blues, having 21 shots at Jordan Pickford’s goal before Scott McTominay was able to open the scoring from a Jadon Sancho’s pass. Substitute Anthony Martial supplied a great finish from a Rashford pass to seal the three points.

When asked to sum up United’s performance against the Toffees, De Gea was pleased with his team-mates' style of play and the way we managed to shut out the visitors from having a foothold in the game. But he did accept United could have had more goals.

“We created many chances and we don’t concede anything," he added. "We play so well from the back, keeping the ball, creating massive chances. But like I said, we should have scored more goals and should be more easier in the second half. But, anyway, we play really good football and I am so happy.

“You never know, especially with teams like Everton who can create a chance from nowhere, a long ball from nowhere. But we defend very well, players being so focused on the game is not easy. And, like I said, it was not easy after playing a tough match on Wednesday, so credit to the team.

“To play Wednesday night and to play Saturday is not easy. So, the energy the team put on today, the intensity, the desire was unbelievable, we controlled the game from the beginning to the end. We created a lot of chances. We probably should have scored more goals, to be honest. Great performances from the team and it was enjoyable.”