Manchester United’s best player this season has been their goalkeeper, and it’s going to be a long summer for them if they want to keep hold of him. United fans will be waiting with baited breath to see if their club can hang on to their prized asset. He won’t leave cheap.

And if David de Gea doesn’t stay at Old Trafford this season then United will have an even bigger job on their hands – replacing him.

But sitting on the United bench over the last couple of games has been one of the world’s foremost goalkeepers of the last decade.

Victor Valdes wanted to leave Barcelona for a new challenge last summer, but his plans were cruelly wrecked by a knee injury just before the end of the season. Since then, however, he has worked his way into the Manchester United starting lineup, albeit for the final game of the season, replacing the injured De Gea.

He had a shaky couple of moments, dropping two crosses that led to chances, but he made a couple of outstanding saves as United kept a clean sheet despite Hull having the ball in the United twice only to see the flag go up both times.

It’s been a year since Valdes found himself in the starting lineup, so he did well all things considered and even pulled off one save in particular which rolled back the years. If we didn’t already know he was a fantastic goalkeeper, we were certainly reminded with that save.

In many ways, Valdes is the perfect replacement for De Gea, either as a replacement through injury or suspension or as a permanent replacement if De Gea does leave this summer.

Louis Van Gaal gave Valdes his debut at Barcelona because he was able to play in a way which fitted into the dutchman’s philosophy on how football should be played. The philosophy hasn’t changed, it’s still as thoughtful and cerebral as ever, and after years of playing at Barcelona in the tiki-taka style that Van Gaal laid the foundations for Valdes should do just fine at United. If not even better than De Gea.

If the United number one was his team’s best player this season, it’s because his defence gave him no protection. And the United defence was shaky at the start of the season because they had to adapt to a new style of playing. Van Gaal’s style makes it harder to defend sometimes because his teams have to pass the ball in front of the opposition and work an opening. As United build pressure on the opposition, one bad pass can lead to a counter attack and Premier League teams can punish you on the counter.

But now that United’s defence is more adept at playing in this system, the keeper should have less to do. The beauty of Valdes’s style of goalkeeping is how good he is with his feet and how high his starting position is. If United lose the ball, Valdes’s sweeper-keeper style should bail them out.

So if they lose De Gea they have a ready made replacement on the bench. He may be a little old now, he may not have played much over the last year and he may not be as good as De Gea is or will become, but at least United know that they can replace their keeper if he leaves. They’re not in a Peter Schmeichel Mark Bosnich/Massimo Taibi situation. De Gea’s departure won’t mean that United will have to spend years searching for a replacement. They have one on the bench.

If De Gea leaves, Valdes will not be the keeper who guard United’s goal for the next decade, but he is someone who fits with the present philosophy and is a capable stopgap. in other words, Valdes would give United time to find a long-term De Gea replacement. If so, it would be insanely good business to sell De Gea to Real Madrid for a fortune and replace him with a world class goalkeeper who joined the club on a free.

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