Sunday 9 August 2015 09:30, UK
Louis van Gaal has not given up on David de Gea playing for Manchester United again despite leaving him out of their Premier League season-opener against Tottenham.
Summer signing Sergio Romero played in goal for United in their 1-0 win at Old Trafford, keeping a clean sheet in his first competitive game for the club, while youngster Sam Johnstone sat on the bench as his understudy.
De Gea has been subject of interest from Real Madrid all summer but Van Gaal says there is no chance of a cut-price deal for the 24-year-old to return to Spain after leaving him out of his squad because of the doubts over his future.
And the Dutchman hopes De Gea will still decide to stay in Manchester despite seeing Romero make a decent start to his United career in a game settled by Kyle Walker's clumsy first-half own goal.
"Of course," the United manager said when asked if De Gea could play for the club again.
"We have to pay a lot of money for the players we want so we want to sell at the same level when we have to sell.
"We want to keep him, of course. He has been voted the best player here for the last two years."
Romero's biggest save on a relatively quiet debut came from Walker, and he also kept out a couple of efforts from Christian Eriksen late on as Spurs went in search of an equaliser.
And Van Gaal was impressed by the 28-year-old's performance given the short amount of time he has had with the club.
"We have observed (De Gea) in preparation and that was not the same David de Gea as last year," Van Gaal said.
"Of course when the situation has been cleared after September 1 we will look again. But I'm happy Sergio did well. He saved us twice.
"We have to improve his building up, but Sergio trained only two days with his fellow players."
