"De Gea will play on Sunday," explained Sir Alex. "I think the long-term view is De Gea, it's the reason we bought him and spent £18million, and we’re giving him a chance, I think he was unfortunate with the second goal, he had no chance with the first goal. Anyone who’s criticising any goalkeeper, when these free-kicks come in, and all the defenders are converging on top of him, the goalkeeper has no chance because the delivery is so good.
"It’s the same with Joe Hart interestingly enough and there was no criticism of him for the goal. Exactly the same type of goal that City conceded. He’s your national goalkeeper so the goalkeeper has absolutely no chance when the ball gets whipped in like that. Absolutely no chance because it only needs a fraction of a touch and the goalkeeper's dead. He comes for it and he looks silly, he’s got to hope that the defenders deal with it and that’s what we hoped and our defenders didn’t deal with it."
"On the second goal last week, he was stepping forward and then he took a step back and he got a bit unbalanced.
"It wasn’t a goalkeeper's mistake, more of a technical mistake in terms of his feet. We didn’t expect that and he wouldn't be doing that again, it’s just one of these things. The ball did move a bit, maybe about two feet. He’ll be fine."
The former Atletico Madrid keeper is wasting little time becoming integrated at United and adapting to his new surroundings.
"He’s learning a lot of things," added the manager. "He’s doing very well with his English, he’s taking it on board very well. His language teacher is delighted with him. Eric Steele, the goalkeeping coach, is pleased with him. He’s getting his communication across bit-by-bit."
