It’s a rare occurrence for a top-priced keeper to come under the gaze of a Watchlist article but, given his shot-stopping performances so far, David De Gea enters our thoughts.
The young Spaniard has played all but one league match for the champions and despite picking up just three clean sheets, is the joint-top scoring keeper in Fantasy Premier League (FPL) after ten gameweeks. Priced at 6.6, he hardly comes cheap but a closer look at the statistics –in addition to his upcoming fixtures- shows he may just be worth a punt.
United have conceded an average of 19 goal attempts, the joint-worst defence alongside Bolton but thanks to the heroics of their new summer signing, have let in only 12 goals. De Gea has been a pivotal figure in their season to this point, making a total of 49 saves, the most of any keeper in the FPL.
Compare this to similarly-priced stoppers such as Joe Hart (25 saves) and Petr Cech (10 saves) and his appeal amongst the top bracket keepers is obvious. Indeed, De Gea’s total of Fantasy 45 points is bettered only by two defensive players in the game; Newcastle’s Ryan and Steve Taylor, with 47 and 46 respectively. With clean sheets so hard to come by across the board, his save points are steadily racking up the extra points- last week’s 8 saves and clean sheet at Everton a case in point. De Gea also earned bonus from that game.
For those who like to double up in defence, the possibility of pairing the Spaniard with Jonny Evans, in the short-term at least, is an intriguing one. Evans has started eight of United’s ten fixtures and with Sir Alex Ferguson recently admitting that Rio Ferdinand is no longer a first-choice option at the back, a run of games for the Irishman –priced at 4.5- could be conceivable. An Evans-De Gea pairing would currently set you back 11.1- less than say, Shay Given (5.0) and Jose Bosingwa (6.3) – a very popular combination.
With a favourable run of fixtures for the foreseeable future (SUN, swa, NEW, avl, WOL, qpr) and the return of Nemanja Vidic to shore up the United back-line, De Gea looks set to rack up the points in the next few gameweeks to come, regardless of whether clean sheets come his way.
