A lot has been said about the Europa League final penalty shootout in the past week.
David de Gea failed to save a single penalty on the night, with Villarreal winning after scoring 11, and he missed the decisive penalty himself.
It has led to discussions as to why Ole Gunnar Solskjaer didn’t sub on Dean Henderson before the end of extra-time – but let’s not pretend that is a common practice for managers.
Louis van Gaal did it with Holland at a World Cup when the squad environment is very different to club football. What if Solskjaer brought Henderson on and it went the same way? You’d have people saying the manager should have stuck with De Gea.
Former England goalkeeper Peter Shilton believes that it’s disrespectful to even suggest that you’d take off a keeper who has played almost 120 minutes for you.
“With penalty shootouts you need a bit of luck,” Shilton told the ipaper.
“Some goalkeepers are better than others or luckier. I think it’s a bit disrespectful to say to a goalkeeper ‘look you’ve played the whole 90 minutes or whatever but you’re not good enough to save a penalty’.
“Jordan Pickford faced four at the last World Cup and didn’t save any and then the fifth one the fella [Carlos Bacca] gave him a chance and he saved one. At Euro ’96, David Seaman saved one against Spain and then didn’t save any out of six against Germany. That’s how penalty shootouts are.”
I couldn’t agree more with Shilton – and it’s not very often I have said that.
However, I don’t think all criticism is disrespectful. De Gea is not a good penalty stopper.
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