Sergio Romero: A transfer to trigger price growth
With the announcement of goalkeeper dividends and team of the month to boot it’s fair to say Football Index is a changed game where keepers are concerned. Everyone has been stocking up on the obvious picks but could Sergio Romero of Manchester United offer some serious potential?
Overcoming investors block
The thing that screams out against Romero is the fact he’s 33-years-old. It is a red flag. The fact he’s firmly in David De Gea’s shadow is another. Yet consider recent displays and the latter point offers a twist that could see Romero’s price of £0.37 hike.
De Gea’s form for United has been somewhat short of his exceptional best for some time with the Spanish stopper coming in for a fair bit of stick. Just a few weeks ago, Roy Keane was frothing at the mouth after the keeper allowed Tottenham’s Steven Bergwijn to beat him with far too much ease. Most cut him some slack but then came the FA Cup semi-final.
You could make a case to say De Gea should have done better with all three goals he conceded. Only the second – from Mason Mount – actually went down as an error. It takes his season tally for errors leading to goals to four; the second most of the Premier League keepers.
How does that help Sergio Romero?
De Gea’s form has no impact on Romero. Not really anyway. The issue for Romero comes when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer sticks with De Gea time and time again. It’s blind loyalty.
What’s more infuriating for the current benchwarmer at Old Trafford is that he’s not even perceived as being in contention for the shirt with a youngster – Dean Henderson – who isn’t even at the club seemingly seen as number the number two.
Rumour has it that Romero has had enough of being overlooked. You can see why too because he’s a good keeper. If he decides to call quits on his time at United then it’s more than feasible that he becomes a number one at another club in a PB league. That would surely see a price impact immediately.
How good is Sergio Romero?
It’s hard to read too much into his stats to be honest purely on the fact he predominantly comes into the action for cup matches, which raises questions over the quality of opposition. Even so, during the 2019/20 season he’s played 15 games registering 11 clean sheets with just four goals conceded. That’s good going regardless.
He’s not been completely redundant in games either. On average, he makes 1.6 stops per match. He turned in a man of the match performance against Wolves earlier in the season in the FA Cup and a crucial penalty save in the League Cup helped his team avoid a third round upset against Rochdale. On top of that, he’s got nearly 100 Argentinian caps to his name. Hardly the mark of a bad keeper.
The future
As already touched on, there is a lot of smoke suggesting Romero is fed up of his role at United and will look to move on. There will be plenty of takers too. Premier League duo Everton and Leeds have both been linked.
The Toffees don’t immediately look like a good fit given they have Jordan Pickford but his form, like De Gea’s, has been erratic at best. Leeds meanwhile could present a great move for both parties. Although they’re newly promoted they remain a big club globally and Marco Bielsa, who is also from Argentina, will be a big pull. For the club, they will get a reliable and experienced keeper.
Of course, the risk of an investment comes if Romero opts to remain De Gea’s understudy. If that happens then the chance of a return is slim. The only thing that remains is to answer the question, “Sergio Romero, yes or no?”.