After yesterday's comments from De Gea about how the media are right to put him under the spotlight after his performances so far the papers seem to have taken this as their cue to base every preview of the Bolton game around him.
Most of them go for sensationalist headlines about him being "axed" even though nothing in their articles backs up the claim, it's the old cop out - "us journalists don't write the headlines."
And the less sensational truth? Probably best summed up in The Telegraph:
With United facing a draining Champions League trip to Benfica ahead of next week’s Old Trafford clash with Chelsea, Ferguson is preparing to freshen up his starting XI at the Reebok. Denmark international Lindegaard, who impressed during United’s summer tour of the United States, has made just two appearances since arriving from Aalesunds in January and has not appeared for the first team since the FA Cup defeat of Crawley Town in February.
Having invested £18.3million on 20-year-old Atlético Madrid goalkeeper De Gea in the summer following Edwin van der Sar’s retirement at the end of last season, Ferguson has publicly defended the youngster following unconvincing early-season displays. And while De Gea remains Ferguson’s first-choice, the prospect of a physical encounter at Bolton, plus the need to hand Lindegaard competitive action, has left the United manager considering the prospect of rotating his goalkeepers today.
Which sound like the outfield positions could be just as interesting as the choice of keeper, after internationals, before two big games, could be an interesting selection. Of course all the papers could just focus on De Gea... The Guardian cut the rug from all the arguments, and its something everyone accepts so why they're going on about an axe.... anyway, the Guardian, summing up:
Ferguson has already decided that De Gea, the £18.3m summer signing from Atlético Madrid, is the club's first-choice goalkeeper, sticking by the Spain Under-21 international after his mistakes in the Community Shield
It's also interesting the way that Sir Alex's quotes about De Gea from the press conference yesterday are all distorded by the omission of most of his comments. Here's the full bit from The Telegraph:
“He is bound to get better protection than he did at West Brom,” Ferguson said. “I don’t think he got the protection he should have had at West Brom. But I thought he dealt with the physical part very well. He made a mistake with the goal but other than that, on every occasion where West Brom put the ball on top of him, he dealt with it.
“There is nothing wrong with that [physical test], it’s part of the challenge and each game that comes along will be a new experience for him. He got a different type of experience at West Brom and actually did really well in the sense that he had to deal with it but he didn’t get any protection from the referee.”
Most of the papers just have the bit about him getting better protection, missing out the praise, because it doesn't fit the agenda of De Gea having problems. Forgetting (or leaving out purposefully) that none of the goals/mistakes have come from handling, or crosses, but from fairly simple shots.
'David de Gea is a top goalkeeper - there is no doubt about it,' Coyle said.'With Manchester United, it is difficult to find any weaknesses, but my focus will be on making sure my group are at their best.'We know as long as we get to our maximum that we can sleep well at night.'If we do that, although we certainly won't be able to match Manchester United over the course of a season, on any given day we can win these games.'
'What we don't want to do is be below that - it leaves that bad taste in your mouth, so I will be stressing to my group that we have to get to our best.
Reading between the lines (the talk of just doing their best) it sounds like they might be beat before we even get there...
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