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David de Gea was Sir Alex Ferguson’s pick to replace Edwin van der Sar at Manchester United (Getty)
Manchester United’s former goalkeeping coach Eric Steele has revealed that Sir Alex Ferguson opted to sign David de Gea ahead of Manuel Neuer and Hugo Lloris.
United were in the market to replace Edwin van der Sar in 2011 and ended up signing De Gea in an £18.9 million deal from Atletico Madrid .
The transfer made De Gea the second most expensive goalkeeper at the time behind Gianluigi Buffon, who joined Juventus for £32.6m in 2001.
Steele, who was part of Ferguson’s coaching set-up at Old Trafford, claims he scouted several goalkeepers across Europe in order to find a successor to Van der Sar.
Ferguson chose to trust Steele’s judgement on De Gea, who went on to make 545 appearances for United before leaving the club in 2023.
Speaking on the Talk of the Devils podcast, Steele said: ‘I didn’t know anything about the money, I just handed the brief over because by then I’d seen David live 17 times live.
Eric Steele (centre) was tasked with scouting David de Gea before his move to Manchester United (Getty)
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‘But I’d also seen Lloris, Stekelenburg, I’d seen every No.1 in Europe. They used to know me at the airports. At the end of it you were doing your job with the team but that was part of the brief.
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‘I had a really good friend of mine who is no longer with us, Alan Hodgkinson, we had to keep it confidential, who we were looking at, you try keeping confidential when a goalkeeper coach ends up at Atletico and they go, ‘I wonder why he is here’.
‘I went to Anfield, semi-final they [Atletico] are playing Liverpool, he did something in the game, David, the game kicked off, I’ll always remember, somebody got through inside right channel, typical David he stood up and saved it with his foot, didn’t do this blocking and spreading, he could do that but he could stay big and use his feet, the ball hit his foot and went for a corner. You could see Carragher shaping to batter him and obviously so they would with a young goalkeeper playing, I’ll always remember he came and punched it 30 yards. I turned to Ray Clemence and said, ‘I’ve seen enough’, that was one minute into the game.’
Steele went on to add: ‘We were down to Lloris, Neuer and David.
‘I think the manager, Sir Alex, has actually gone in and said, ‘in the end, I’ll back my goalkeeper coach’, since I did an interview with him he said, ‘I trust you because I tried and I didn’t do so well did I from Schmeichel to Van der Sar’.’
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