Time to face fax — without De Gea United would have been in trouble
WHETHER the stories about a faulty fax machine scuppering David De Gea’s move to Real Madrid are true or not, United must count their lucky stars.
It is now three years since the Madrid-born goalkeeper was on the verge of heading home, only for the £22million deadline-day deal to not go through in time.
Real accused the Premier League club of filing the paperwork late.
Whoever was to blame, Jose Mourinho is benefitting from it.
Ask any defender and he will tell you about the sense of security felt when he sees someone so sturdy behind him. He is their safety net.
That is what United centre-backs Chris Smalling and Victor Lindelof had yesterday.
De Gea will have busier days but his contribution was significant. Were it not for him, Watford would have been 1-0 up within 20 minutes. Were it not for him, United would have conceded a leveller deep into stoppage time. The home side, after four straight Premier League wins, had their tails up at the start.
The went close to scoring when a long ball was aimed towards Troy Deeney.
Watford’s big lump chested it down and moments later had his chance to shoot.
Deeney struck a sweet shot which was rising into the back of the United net until De Gea got a hand to it.
Replays showed it was one we would now expect of the best keeper in the English game, but he made no mistake.
Had that gone in, the way United were playing at the time they would have had a mountain to climb. A goal down, heads would have dropped.
Instead, they went on to take a 2-0 lead before half-time. Watford scored in the second half through Andre Gray, though it was through no fault of De Gea’s.
In stoppage time, with United down to 10 men, Christian Kabasele headed for goal from six yards out.
It was flying in, fans were about to rise to their feet in celebration, then De Gea intervened.
The Spaniard threw himself to his left, denying Kabasele his dream goal. Once again, United’s fans were left thanking the heavens that fax never went through in 2015.