David de Gea’s penalty struggles continued in Manchester United’s Europa League Final defeat to Villarreal in Gdansk.
The Spanish side scored all 11 of their spot kicks before De Gea himself missed from 12 yards.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer opted to start the 30-year-old ahead of Dean Henderson and then decided not to swap his goalkeepers before the shootout.
De Gea’s record at saving penalties left a lot to be desired before Wednesday’s final – and it now makes for even worse reading.
The United goalkeeper has been unable to save any of the last 40 penalties he has faced.
In fact his last save came in the 2016 FA Cup semi-final against Everton when he stopped Romelu Lukaku scoring.
That was when Louis van Gaal was still in charge meaning its been five years since he stopped a spot kick.
De Gea has been beaten high, low, left, right by a host of names.
Henderson meanwhile has a far greater record as stopping people from 12 yards. Since 2016-17, he has faced 19 penalties at club level saving five and conceding just 10, according to Opta.
He saved from Manchester City’s Gabriel Jesus whilst at Sheffield United last term and also pulled off a penalty stop in the 2018 League One Play-off final.
Solskjaer was aware of De Gea’s penalty struggles and did consider swapping him out, but in the end chose to stick rather than twist.
He said: “You go through every scenario, of course, and it [De Gea’s penalty record] had crossed my mind in the build-up to the game but we were confident in David and prepared.
“Anything can happen in a penalty shootout. I stuck with the keeper who played all of the game.
“I’ve got to say the penalty shootout was high quality, but we didn’t do enough in the 120 minutes to score more goals and that’s the disappointing bit.
“We had pressure, we had moments where we felt if we can just kick on a little bit now we can get a goal. But we just couldn’t.”