Why David De Gea Is the 1 Manchester United Player Arsenal Would Love to Sign

This weekend, Arsenal will face off against Manchester United. For Robin van Persie and Danny Welbeck, that will mean coming up against their former clubs. It’s an unusual situation, as transfers between the two teams are relatively rare. However, if there’s one player that Arsene Wenger could prise away from Old Trafford it would surely be David De Gea.

The Spanish stopper has been United’s outstanding player this season, with his remarkable performances earning him a nomination for PFA Player of the Year. After a difficult start to life in English football, De Gea has subsequently matured into the league’s finest goalkeeper.

Arsenal could do with a reliable No. 1. They began the season with Wojciech Szczesny in goal, but a run of poor form and a dressing room incident at Southampton saw him relegated to the substitutes' bench. David Ospina has performed admirably in his place, but he hasn’t necessarily convinced that he is a long-term solution to Wenger’s goalkeeping problem.

In the recent defeat against Swansea City, both his positioning and footwork were called in to question after he allowed Bafetimbi Gomis’ header to creep over the line.

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One imagines De Gea would have kept that out, largely because he’s at least four inches taller than the Colombian. That’s not the only stat where De Gea stands clear of his Arsenal counterpart. According to Squawka, he makes an average of 2.11 saves per game as compared with Ospina’s 1.93. 

He’s also more competent in the air. Ospina is more inclined toward punching the ball, which can sometimes mean the opposition are able to sustain pressure on the Arsenal goal. Ospina punches 47 percent of the time, whereas De Gea has developed to punch on just 17 percent of occasions.

That ability to grasp the ball in two hands gives a back four incredible security, and it is demonstrative of the way the Spaniard has adapted to and embraced the aerial challenge of English football. Ospina is only in his first season of Premier League football and may well make that adjustment. However, De Gea has already been through that period of acclimatisation and emerged as a superior goalkeeper. He is already the finished product.

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He’s a better kicker, too. Although De Gea and Ospina both average a long-distance kick of 44 metres, De Gea finds a friendly target with a remarkable 69 percent of his punts.

Unfortunately for Wenger and Arsenal, the idea of signing De Gea remains little more than a fantasy. It’s unthinkable that Louis van Gaal would allow him to join another Premier League club, and according to Rik Sharma of the MailOnline, Real Madrid are the team most likely to wrest him away from United.

Arsenal must instead hope they can uncover the next De Gea, as the man himself remains infuriatingly out of reach.

James McNicholas is Bleacher Report's lead Arsenal correspondent and is following the club from a London base throughout the 2014-15 season. Follow him on Twitter here.