De Gea: I feel the best I’ve felt
David De Gea says he’s feeling as good as he’s ever felt in his career and he’s determined to help Manchester United win more trophies.
Our no.1, who penned a new deal with the club just over a year ago, sat down with MUTV’s Mark Sullivan to reflect on last weekend’s controversial penalty incident against Crystal Palace and discuss life in the Reds goalkeeping department.
De Gea spoke of the great bond amongst all the stoppers and their coaches, and declared he’s feeling as strong as ever.
Asked if he thinks people forget that he is still a young goalkeeper, the Spain international said: “Yeah maybe because I’ve been playing a lot since I was very young but right now I feel probably the best I’ve felt in my career.
“I feel very, very well and very confident and very positive and that’s very important for me. Now it’s time to be back to winning ways and winning trophies, that’s the most important thing for us at the moment. Like I say I feel very, very good.
“It’s great to train every day here with the coaches and the goalkeepers,” he added. “We always try to learn from each other and try to push altogether. It’s great. If you see the training it’s really good to see the goalkeepers together.
“It’s very important to have good feelings with the other goalkeepers and the goalkeeping coaches as well. It’s great. We are training, like I say, very, very well – the whole department of keepers. We need to be at this level every day and to show the players that the keepers are feeling 100%. Now like I said we have to go for trophies.”
Looking back on the incident against Palace when De Gea saved Jordan Ayew’s penalty before it was deemed he had stepped off his line too soon and Wilf Zaha fired home the retake, David said: “It was a bit crazy. It’s already difficult to save a penalty so even if okay you make the save and they repeat the penalty then they can change the taker so there’s no pressure on the player who missed the penalty. It’s a little bit strange. Those are the rules though and I try to save the next penalty straight from the line, that’s the football rules.
“It’s true the first game wasn’t the best game for us. It was a strange time after last season not having enough time to rest properly but it’s the same for all teams.
"It’s time to start winning games. Last season we finished really, really strong so we need to try to play as we did in the last 10 games of last season. This is the way we need to be and playing our best football.”
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