There is one, fundamental flaw in David James’ thinking.
The summer brought us a transfer saga, involving Manchester United and Real Madrid, that had the fuse snipped in MacGyver fashion – seconds to go on the digital clock.
David de Gea had an unveiling day suit sorted for his meet and greet with Los Blancos fans at the Bernabeu. The blame game was vitriolic but, when all was said and done, de Gea stayed at United and Costa Rican goalkeeper Keylor Navas remained at Madrid.
The former Liverpool and England goalkeeper was raving about the stellar 2015/16 form of Navas when he struck upon a notion.
James opined “You look at Navas at Real Madrid, it’s no wonder de Gea didn’t go there.
“When you think that Navas is such a good goalkeeper that de Gea wasn’t necessarily going to be the number one anyway. I think it was possibly a reason, because Navas is awesome. He has been for a few years now.”
What James fails to grasp is that Navas was on a plane, waiting to fly to Manchester and join United, had both clubs got their deadline day act together. The goalkeepers would never have been in the same squad.
James added, “I enquired a couple of years ago to Arsene Wenger, ‘Why don’t you go for Navas, £8million or £10million buy-out?’ He had (David) Ospina on his card, he went for Ospina, didn’t he?
“Navas has had an exceptional start to the season in Spain and justified my theory that he is up there, if I say the top three – as a loose number – in the world because he is that good.”
