David de Gea and the Chinese Bamboo

Right. Before I even start, I had to get this off my chest.

‘David de Gea is a fantastic keeper! With enough potential to become the greatest ever! Besides, you, yes you, random de Gea critic or hater, are not playing for Manchester United at Upton Park and dealing with a Joe Cole cross lashed in front of the goalmouth! So just shut up!’

Now. Oh yes, the article.

I’m dead certain that you have read countless posts on Facebook or Twitter about how Schmeichel and Van der Sar started playing for United at the age of 27 and 35 respectively and they (especially Van Der Sar) had considerable amounts of success, if not just experience playing with their former clubs. This would probably have convinced most of you anyway, but then being such an ardent admirer of de Gea, I could not sleep at night thinking that there are more of his haters out there lurking in their bedrooms, coming out only at night to make known their disapproval of the young Spaniard. So I decided to do my bit and tell you exactly why David de Gea, who most think is the weak link in an otherwise perfect United chain, could potentially become the greatest custodian in the world and begin a new era of consistent silverware triumphs in the future, like the way Van der Sar had for four years.

You ought to have heard of the Chinese Bamboo and its bizarre growth pattern. Unlike other plants or trees, it doesn’t grow fully in its first growth season, and doesn’t even have a growth season or such. Plant a sprout in the ground, and be prepared to wait for four to five years -or even more in some cases- for it to start growing. Once it starts doing so, however, ready yourself to let your mind be blown. The same bamboo which showed close to zero growth in those five odd years, grows to a height of ninety feet in just a couple of months! If Aguero’s stoppage time goal against QPR last season was ‘staggering’, what am I going to have to call this?

Now I’m pretty sure you know where I am going with this. David de Gea is our Chinese Bamboo. The only difference, is, that he has grown twenty inches even before his actual growth spurt has begun. This could sound weird if we weren’t talking about football. But jokes apart, don’t you see that improvement in de Gea? Those twenty inches? The slightly more muscular arm that isn’t afraid to step out and deal with crosses unlike the scrawny one that stayed put in its position last season? That sudden vociferousness as compared to the silent introverted kid who let the centre-backs do all the talking for him? He hasn’t improved leaps and bounds of course, but he is making crucial saves for us almost in every match, most of being the reason why those three points weren’t just one point gained, or why we went into half-time still possessing the lead.

Now if you’d lost patience and pulled out the bamboo sprout to see why it wasn’t growing, there would have been zero chance for it to grow the way it otherwise would have. And who knows? Maybe de Gea is in his fifth year. I know Sir Alex Ferguson is not daft enough to sell him because of that one mistake at White Hart Lane. I’m positively sure about that, but I still have to make you see the light, don’t I? After all, you are only anxious about him because you are concerned about the club. In the end, we all have one common desire, and that is too see Manchester United win. Anything and everything: just win!

So give the lad a bit of breathing space and a wee more time (trying to sound like Sir Alex here) and you’ll get to see for yourself what the boy is made of. David de Gea is one for the future. United’s last two Champions League successes were pioneered by the ‘keepers, and in all probability, de Gea will be that one deciding factor with that one last penalty save who is going to win us our fourth. As the footballing cliche goes, ‘A good attack wins you matches; A good defence wins you tournaments’. To add to this, ‘A good keeper makes sure that the strikers keep winning you matches and the defence keeps winning you tournaments’.

Hope I made a little sense!