Premier League: Manchester United confirm signing David de Gea

Resham Ahmed May 25, 2011 0

Premier League: Manchester United confirm signing David de Gea

LONDON: After winning their record 19^th English Premier League title earlier this weekend, the Manchester United have signed David de Gea from Atletico Madrid for 17 million pounds.

David de Gea

David de Gea, 20, would replace the outgoing Van der Sar who already had announced his retirement after guarding Manchester United’s goal for one final time in the UEFA Champions League 2011 final against Barcelona at Wembley on May 28.

Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson confirmed signing David de Gea here Wednesday saying he is the perfect replacement for Van der Sar.

The 17 million pounds deal is the biggest transfer for a goalkeeper in the English Premier League history. The quantum of deal shows how eager Sir Alex Ferguson is to have a brilliant goalkeeper to assist the Red Devils in the next season.

David de Gea

The deal overshadows the previous British transfer record for a goalkeeper which was held by Sunderland who paid nine million pounds to Hearts for signing Craig Gordon in 2007.

David de Gea, who is yet to represent his country Spain in even a single match, is now the second highest paid goalkeeper in the history of football as Gianluigi Buffon is still on top of the list of getting best deal as goalkeeper when Juventus hired him from Parma for 32 million pounds in 2001.

David De Gea

Van der Sar will represent the Manchester United for one final time on Saturday in the Champions League final against Barcelona after spending six seasons at Old Trafford.

Sir Ferguson is relying big on David to fill in Van der Sar’s place perfectly as he wouldn’t enjoy facing the same situation he did in 1999 after departure of Peter Schmeichel.

David de Gea

Confirming the deal, Ferguson told British media, “We’ve been working on it for quite a while. We identified him quite a while back as one we should go for. He’s young, very quick, good composure, presence and an outstanding replacement for Van der Sar. We were looking for the same type of qualities as Edwin, because the one great quality Edwin always had was his composure and organisational ability. David de Gea is very similar that way.”