Spain manager won’t accept criticism of David de Gea

Spain manager Luis Enrique made it clear he will not accept anyone blaming David de Gea for Spain’s 1-0 defeat to Ukraine in the Nations League.

The Spanish had a 15-game unbeaten run to keep going but that came to an end last night in Kiev thanks to a second-half goal from Viktor Tsygankov.

Spain dominated phases of the game but didn’t create enough clear-cut opportunities, which allowed Ukraine to take advantage of their chance to win the game.

After watching the goal, I can’t understand why De Gea would get the blame because the defence getting completely split open when Andriy Yarmolenko played in Tsygankov right through.

The goal shouldn’t ask more questions of De Gea and his No.1 role for club and country, and I can’t imagine Chelsea’s Kepa Arrizabalaga doing much better.

Watch the goal below, footage courtesy of L’Equipe:

Enrique is not prepared to listen to criticism of De Gea, though. After the match he said (via GOAL): “You can always do more, but blaming De Gea is already a bad habit.

“If David id blamed for a game like this, switch it off and we’ll leave.”

The former Barcelona manager went on to explain: “If you attack in a continuous way, you know there are transitions. If a team defends and keeps it at 0-0, they grow, and in one action they’ve caught us. We have to congratulate them.

“Nothing happens because in one or two games you don’t score goals. We created chances to kill them off. It was a game clearly under our control, with opponents closing the passes and the passing lines.

“We created chances with Adama [Traore] through his overlapping. In the end, we went into panic mode. I’ve lost lots of these games in my career. The opponent is growing and then in a transition…

“The conclusion is I liked the attitude of the players. I like what I see.”

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