Goalkeeping expert John Harrison has claimed that David de Gea will be disappointed not to have saved the second goal as Manchester United lost the FA Cup final but has claimed it wasn’t a “howler”.

Did David de Gea make a mistake in the FA Cup final?

The Red Devils came up against Manchester City in their final game of this season over the weekend but ultimately didn’t have enough to lift what could have been their second trophy this term – after winning the Carabao Cup.

Erik ten Hag and co actually got off to the worst start possible as Ilkay Gundogan stunned fans by scoring a brilliant goal just 13 seconds into the game

Man Utd won a controversial penalty after Jack Grealish was punished for a handball and Bruno Fernandes made no mistake from 12 yards as he levelled the scores at 1-1.

However, in the second half, Gundogan struck again with another volley from outside the box. Unlike his first effort, though, this wasn’t the cleanest of strikes as the ball seemed to make contact with his shin before finding the bottom corner.

Unsurprisingly, there were question marks over De Gea for the goal and Harrison – who is Head of Data Science at goalkeeper.com and has had his work featured on Sky Sports and The Athletic – claimed that it wasn’t necessarily a “howler” from the Spaniard, but he probably should have done better.

In a thread on Twitter, the University of Cambridge graduate explained: “It’s hard to tell by eye as while the shot was from range & moving slowly it came through bodies & bounced awkwardly. At goalkeeper.com we use these factors & many more & find this shot is saved 81% of the time by PL GKs.”

He continued: “For context, the “worst” two goals De Gea conceded in the Premier League this year were against Brentford & West Ham & they had expected save probabilities of 96% & 98%. So historical data shows the FA Cup final winner was far more difficult than these shots to save!”

Before adding: “Thus the FA Cup final winner was hardly a “howler” given it goes in about 1 in 5 times but it is still a shot a GK with De Gea’s shot-stopping ability would want to make! GKing is nuanced especially in situations like this so GK analysis must go beyond, slow goal = awful GKing!”

All in all, it sounds as though De Gea will be disappointed not to have saved this effort – especially as it was such a decisive moment – but it wasn’t the biggest mistake he’ll ever make.

Even so, Former Manchester United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel said it was poor, telling the BBC (via Mirror): “I think he should have done better. I was very surprised.”

“I look at where he is in the goal… If I put myself in there I would be thinking ‘okay, I have to right in the middle of this triangle’ – he gets a full hand to it!

“He’s a little bit too deep… he should move toward where the ball is.”