Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been praised for ignoring calls to drop goalkeeper David de Gea when he was going through a poor run of form.
The Spain international looks to be getting back to his best at the moment after another fine performance and clean sheet against West Brom at the weekend, with Garth Crooks naming him in his Premier League team of the week.
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For many years, it would have seemed crazy to even consider dropping De Gea, who was undoubtedly one of the very finest ‘keepers in the world for some time.
However, he started to make some sloppy errors last season and the year before, and the emergence of promising youngster Dean Henderson will have put him under a lot of pressure to improve.
Crooks, however, believes Solskjaer did the right thing in sticking with De Gea rather than listening to knee-jerk reactions of pundits who were calling for a change in that position.
“The Manchester United keeper has taken some stick and from those who should have known better,” Crooks wrote in his column for BBC Sport.
“There was even a time when some pundits thought he should have been dropped. For whom exactly? Someone with less experience? Oh I see, let’s throw some other goalkeeper into the lions’ den so we can destroy him after a couple of games, shall we?
“Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has done well to ignore those overtures and stick with one of the few genuine world-class goalkeepers in the game. His point-blank save from West Brom’s Conor Townsend was crucial to Saturday’s victory.”