I regret selling Him,I really want to meet Him again and apologize to Him so He can join us back again,He is the main reason behind our downfall’: Erik Ten Hag says He regret the way He treated £45m star out of the Club,Now He wants Him back again – Not De Gea
I regret selling Him,I really want to meet Him again and apologize to Him so He can join us back again,He is the main reason behind our downfall’: Erik Ten Hag says He regret the way He treated £45m star out of the Club,Now He wants Him back again – Not De Gea
Manchester United sold Matej Kovar during the summer for a relatively cheap fee which now looks to have been a mistake.
During the summer just passed, Manchester United oversaw a massive goalkeeping overhaul as they let David de Gea leave for free and sold Dean Henderson and Matej Kovar.
Since then De Gea hasn’t found himself a club and remains a free-agent, Henderson has barely featured for Crystal Palace due to injuries and Sam Johnstone being excellent but Matej Kovar has been pulling up roots at Bayer Leverkusen.
With Andre Onana failing to inspire any confidence this season regularly, a portion of the fanbase has begun wishing for the Spaniard’s return to Old Trafford.
However, while fans are wrong to want De Gea back – some probably forget how genuinely awful he was last season – there is another who we would happily see return.
Matej Kovar top class again for Bayer Leverkusen
Kovar had been impressing during limited preseason appearances for United which made the decision to sell him look questionable at best. Sold for a fee of just £7.7m, over half this fee was spent on Altay Bayindir who is yet to see a minute of action.
Kovar would have been the ideal understudy to Onana and a player who could feature in cup competitions as he has shown for Bayer this campaign.
He has played every minute of Bayer’s Europa League campaign and most recently last night was arguably man of the match against Hacken.
The Czech keeper made six saves which prevented a whopping 2.35 goals to secure his clean sheet and also boasted an impressive 88% pass completion rate according to SofaScore.
At just 23, he still has such a high ceiling and is a player Erik ten Hag absolutely could regret selling, but solace can be had in the fact United were wise enough to include a buy-back clause in the contract.
Kovar continues to prove United wrong
When looking at United’s goalkeeping in Europe this season, it is easy to envy what Bayer has and regret selling what we could have had.
Kovar has kept three clean sheets and conceded just two goals in five games which is a very impressive record.
It’s made even more impressive that he has saved 19 shots and prevented 4.25 goals in just five games according to SofaScore.
This is compared with Onana who has faced a higher level of competition but has shown woeful form.
He has 14 goals conceded and he has prevented a negative 2.41 goals in the Champions League alone as per SofaScore. The worst of which was on Wednesday when he conceded two goals from freekicks, which should’ve been saved.
Ten Hag doesn’t trust Bayindir to start him, so keeping Kovar would have been a smart choice. Kovar is the keeper we should’ve kept, not De Gea.
