David De Gea was lazy during his early days at Manchester United, claims former coach

De Gea with Liverpool’s Luis Suarez during the Capital One clash on Wednesday

Manchester United’s former goalkeeping coach Eric Steele has accused shot-stopper David De Gea of eating too many tacos and being lethargic during the keeper’s early days at the club, The Daily Mail reports.

The 22-year-old found it difficult to adjust to England’s style of play when he moved to United from Atletico Madrid for £18 million in 201.

“His first six months were horrendous,’ said Steele to United We Stand fanzine. ‘One issue with him was that he was just 71 kilos. We changed his lifestyle.”

All that seems to have changed now with De Gea giving a strong performance this season and cementing his place as United’s first choice keeper.

In spite of his skills, Steele was let down by the Spaniard when he was freshly recruited by the English champions.

“He would finish training and want to go home. When I told him to come back in the afternoon he’d ask: ‘Why?’”

“He’d sleep two or three times a day. He’d have his main meal late at night. He’d eat too many tacos. We had him in the gym a lot. He hated it. They don’t do the gym in Spain as much.”

The ex-goalkeeping coach even made an effort to learn De Gea’s native language in order to communicate better with the young keeper.

“We needed to be able to communicate with each other straight away, even if it was just the basic terms. David is lazy in his desire to learn English. So I learned. I kept telling him to work on his English.”

The Spain international will be in the goal when United face Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League on Wednesday.