Triangle Red Devils

Not even exaggerating…

🇪🇸 Old Trafford once had a goalkeeper so good, conceding only two goals felt like a bad game for him.

"The Spiderman' David de Gea didn’t just replace Edwin van der Sar at Manchester United.

He survived the impossible job after Ferguson retired.

If you want to understand what it’s like to carry the weight of a footballing empire on your shoulders, you look no further than David de Gea.

​To the Old Trafford faithful, he wasn’t just a goalkeeper; he was "The Matrix".

A shot-stopper with the reflexes of an electrocuted cat who spent a solid decade operating as a one-man firewall during the club’s darkest post-Fergie years.

​De Gea arrived on English shores in 2011 from Atlético Madrid for a cool £18.9 million.

A British record for a keeper at the time. Let’s be honest, his start was a proper baptism of fire.

The physical monsters of the Premier League bullied him senseless in the air, leaving pundits and rival fans claiming Sir Alex Ferguson had dropped a massive clanger trying to replace Edwin van der Sar with this skinny Spanish lad.

But Fergie knew the lad was special. He put him on a strict protein-and-gym regime, and what emerged was an absolute beast under the crossbar.

​There is a bit of "elite-tier" folklore that truly cements his legacy.

De Gea remains the only player in Manchester United history to scoop the Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year award four times, including a ruthless three-year consecutive clean sweep between 2014 and 2016.

Think about that for a second. In a squad overflowing with multi-million-pound outfield talent, the goalkeeper was the undisputed king.

He didn't just play for United, he practically dragged them through the mud single-handedly.

​The absolute pinnacle of his shot-stopping mastery came on a frosty afternoon at the Emirates in 2017.

De Gea pulled off a staggering 14 saves against Arsenal, equalling the all-time Premier League record for a single match.

The Gunners fired rockets left, right and centre, but David kept repelling them with his trademark, unorthodox use of his feet.

Alexandre Lacazette was literally left holding his head in sheer disbelief. That evening, De Gea wasn't human; he was a brick wall.

​Statistically, his pedigree is proper legendary.

Over a 12-year stint in Manchester, he clocked up 545 appearances and shattered Peter Schmeichel’s long-standing club record by racking up 190 clean sheets.

He left Old Trafford having won a Premier League title, an FA Cup, two League Cups, a Europa League and two Premier League Golden Glove awards.

​Lest we forget the infamous "Fax Machine Incident" of 2015.

De Gea was 99% a Real Madrid player, but a bureaucratic oversight and a supposedly dodgy fax machine delayed the paperwork by a single minute before the deadline slammed shut.

The deal collapsed, United kept their talisman and Madrid were left empty-handed.

It was a twist of fate that United fans still thank the football gods for today.

​An under-the-radar fact about David is his absolute obsession with heavy metal music.

Off the pitch, he’s banging his head to the likes of Avenged Sevenfold and Slipknot, which probably explains where he got that insane, adrenaline-fueled reaction speed from.

After taking a well-deserved sabbatical from the game, he made his return to elite football by joining Fiorentina, where he’s still showing the world that class is permanent.

​David de Gea was the ultimate lifesaver.

Without his logic-defying foot-saves, heaven knows how far down the table United would have tumbled during those turbulent transition years.

​Do we still see pure, unadulterated shot-stoppers with that level of freakish instinct today, or has the modern obsession with "sweeper-keepers" who can pass the ball out from the back ruined the art of simply keeping the ball out of the net?

​Let’s have your memories of "Spiderman".

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