When Mourinho told the press that Romero will start the Europa league final against Ajax, eyebrows wereraised and inquiries made into the relationship between the Portuguese and first choice goalie David De Gea after all the 54-year old choleric is never far from picking up issues with star players wherever he goes.

That kind of reaction though can only be excused for folks who don’t know what’s been going on in Manchester this season particularly in Europe. The reason for that is not farfetched. The stats that poured forth after the curtains went down on Wednesday’s night shows the Argentine goalie played 18 matches, kept 12 clean sheets and lost none.

As far as back up goal keepers go, the former AZ man is pretty amazing, maybe even a little bit too amazing to belong to the backup club whose identity is primarily warming the hell out of stadium benches from season to season.

And not just that, they are also known for their incompetence to stand in firmly when called upon. Romero represents something far from such back bench role, in fact, he is simply too good to be a backup goalie when he could be the no 1 in pretty decent clubs and Manchester United are lucky to have him.

Anyone keen observer will know that the only actual surprise here is the Argentine’s coming to being a back up goal keeper and not necessarily the pretty stats. He is a top national team’s chief goalie for Christ’s sake and not justthat, he’s also played in U-20 World Cup final, Copa America and the FIFA World Cup final.

With reports of De Gea’s move to Real Madrid, this summer, flying around leading soccer tabloids, the Red Citizens of Manchester will do well to take solace in the fact that no matter what happens they will be in safe hands.