Why The Dutch GK is Perfect De Gea Successor

Too many holes to fill, too little money to do it. Manchester United’s upcoming summer transfer window could be an exercise in being astute. While the striker position will ultimately take precedence, and by design, most of the transfer budget, they need to plan a succession plan for David de Gea. Bart Verbruggen of Anderlecht is one such astute buy that could fill United’s problem position without a huge outlay. United have been linked to the Dutch prodigy as a budget option who can be a long-term investment as well.

So, how good is Bart Verbruggen? Can the 20-year-old replicate the same level of service that David de Gea has provided Man Utd with since coming to England at a similar age? Here’s the comprehensive Bart Verbruggen analysis to tell you all you need to know about the keeper who might take over from David de Gea-

All stats and figures courtesy of FBRef

Bart Verbruggen analysis

To do a Bart Verbruggen analysis, it is important to put him in comparison to David de Gea. While that is difficult to do so without context, as the strength of the leagues they play in is very different, a general playing style analysis can be done.

In a single sentence, it can be summed up as-

Bart Verbruggen is good at everything David de Gea cannot do and has the potential to be elite at it.

Now to a deeper dive.

David de Gea’s glaring weaknesses are two-fold- inability to play the ball with his feet in buildup scenarios, and lacking command of his area in terms of catching crosses and sweeping outside his area with authority.

According to FBRef, David de Gea stops just 3.3% of the crosses per 90 minutes. This puts him at a lowly 9 percentile of all GKs in Europe’s top-five leagues.

In contrast, Bart Verbruggen stops 10.8% of crosses, good for being in the 93 percentile among the next eight competitions. Obviously, the strength of the league has to be factored in here. However, the basic point made is the difference in the style of play. For comparison, Dean Henderson was stopping 6.9% of crosses before going down with an injury, good for 73 percentile.

Furthermore, David de Gea rarely, if ever leaves his line to sweep outside the area.

With a remarkably low figure of just 0.85 defensive actions/90 outside of his penalty area, David de Gea is far below the elites like Alisson (2.09/90). This reticence has led to United being vulnerable on the break and Erik ten Hag has directly been forced to abandon high lines and proactive pressing due to the same…