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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
Elliott Jackson

Luis Enrique defends Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea after costly error for Spain

Spain boss Luis Enrique has defended Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea after his mistake against Ukraine.

Spain's 15-game unbeaten run was ended when they were beaten 1-0 in Kiev on Tuesday night.

That was thanks to a second-half goal from Viktor Tsygankov, with questions asked of De Gea's positioning as the Ukraine attacker curled the ball around him from the edge of the area, with De Gea caught a long way from his line.

De Gea's form has been a concern for Manchester United over the last two years, although Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has always maintained his faith in the 29-year-old despite the emergence of Dean Henderson.

Dean Henderson's crossbar challenge

Enrique has followed suit and defended his under-fire number one, claiming it is the easy option to point the finger at him.

"You can always do more, but blaming De Gea is already a bad habit," he said.

"If David is blamed for a game like this, switch it off and we'll leave."

He continued: "If you attack in a continuous way, you know there are transitions. If a team defends and keeps it at 0-0, they grow, and in one action they've caught us. We have to congratulate them.

"Nothing happens because in one or two games you don't score goals. We created chances to kill them off. It was a game clearly under our control, with opponents closing the passes and the passing lines.

"We created chances with Adama [Traore] through his overlapping. In the end, we went into panic mode. I've lost lots of these games in my career.

"The opponent is growing and then in a transition. The conclusion is I liked the attitude of the players. I like what I see."

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