David de Gea's best ever save? Man Utd star's epic stop vs Stoke in 2017 | OneFootball

David de Gea is by no means the perfect goalkeeper, but you can seldom ever criticise him when it comes to raw shot-stopping.

In a world where ‘keepers are expected to be more and more rounded with dazzling footwork and distribution particularly prized, De Gea often comes up short compared to the likes of Ederson and Alisson Becker.

There are, after all, very real questions being asked about whether or not De Gea has the suitable profile to be Manchester United‘s number one goalkeeper under Erik ten Hag in the long term.

However, for all the mistakes that De Gea has made across a rocky period in his career since the last World Cup, the Old Trafford faithful have always been able to rest easy knowing that he’s only ever a few games away from a true shot-stopping clinic.

We would even dare to say that when it comes to stopping shots and stopping shots alone that De Gea might well be the greatest number one that the Premier League has ever seen.

De Gea’s superb save vs West Ham

And a flash of that very brilliance was on full display during the Red Devils’ 1-0 win over West Ham United on Sunday night with De Gea producing a spectacular save to deny Kurt Zouma.

A cat-like leap to his right-hand side produced an elastic save which ranks amongst the finest that the Premier League has seen so far this season, and even elicited an amusing reaction from David Moyes.

It was exactly the kind of De Gea special that immediately casts your mind back to other instances of the United legend having defied physics to make a game-changing save for the English giants.

De Gea’s underrated save vs Stoke

And we’d happily argue that the most under-appreciated save in the De Gea catalogue is the mind-boggling stop that he produced during a 2-2 draw with Stoke City back in September 2017.

Not immediately coming to mind? Well, that’s exactly why we’re serving it up for you today because we think that it should be just as regularly praised as his iconic stops to deny Juan Mata and Bryan Oviedo.

In what proved to be a tricky game for United in which an Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting brace nullified goals from Marcus Rashford and Romelu Lukaku, De Gea showed truly superhuman reflexes to deny Jese from making it an even tougher day at the office.

Such was the electrifying hand speed that De Gea showed to make the save that it was named as his second-best stop in the Premier League by United themselves back in 2018.

So, be sure to do yourselves a favour by checking out what might just be the most underrated save that the English top-flight has seen since its 1992 rebranding down below:

Video: De Gea’s speed-of-light save vs Stoke

Epic reflexes from De Gea

How on earth did he pull that off?!

To the untrained eye, it might not look as though De Gea’s save is as miraculous as it’s billed to be, but it’s the minuscule timeframe in which the Spaniard has to lift his hand that makes it so spectacular.

It might seem like a pretty solid stop from the original wide angle, but it’s in the instant replay that you get to see the genius in De Gea’s craft as his speed-of-light movement allows him to thwart Jese when 99% of goalkeepers simply wouldn’t have got there in time.

And it’s a credit to just how many stunning saves De Gea has made in the famous red jersey that an absolute gem like his Stoke stunt can be so easily forgotten.

Chuck his West Ham stop onto the pile of incredible saves, too, and you can rest assured that whatever comes of De Gea’s long-term future at Old Trafford that fans will have plenty to remember him by.