David de Gea needs to decide what's more important: Getting his football career back on track or merely earning massive money?

De Gea has lived a curious life since his unsavoury departure from United last July. The Spaniard thought he would be staying with the club despite coming to the end of his contract and was expecting to sign an extension.

However, that offer was withdrawn by the Red Devils at the last minute and replaced by an alternative, lower offer, at the same time that United were trying to sign Andre Onana.

It was a cruel way to treat a loyal club servant like De Gea and, faced with the prospect of getting a worse deal to be a back-up goalkeeper, no one could blame the Spaniard for saying thanks but no thanks.

It was with some sadness that he called an end to his long spell at Old Trafford, where had become the club’s longest-serving goalkeeper and the man to have kept the most clean sheets in their history.

It has been hard to make sense of what has happened since. De Gea naturally received offers to continue his career immediately after leaving United, but for some reason he preferred to take a breather from the game, deciding that none of the opportunities on the table tickled his fancy.

The transfer window thus closed and he was left without a club. According to The Athletic, he was so upset with how he had been treated by United manager Erik ten Hag and then-sporting director John Murtough that he considered retiring from football altogether.

No announcement came, though, and the only indication of his activities was his Instagram account, where he posted videos of him doing individual training and a picture of a reunion with Bruno Fernandes while visiting Manchester.

That led to some excitement among United fans about the prospect of De Gea making a shock return to the club, although such a move was never on the cards. It was later established that he had been spending time back in England primarily for tax reasons.

When he was not watching United's women's team or playing padel, De Gea kept himself busy running his E-sports team, Rebel Gaming, and spending time with his wife and daughter back in Spain. As a United player, De Gea had gotten used to making frequent trips back to see his wife, who continued to live in Spain as he had famously said she did not like Manchester.

Who could blame him for enjoying some family time and being away from the goldfish bowl existence of being a Manchester United player? However, according to The Athletic, about five months into his break, De Gea ‘realised he missed football and started working towards a return’.

The imminent arrival of the January transfer window led to inevitable speculation that he would be looking for another club, and reports emerged that there was interest in him from a number of Saudi Pro League clubs, including Steven Gerrard’s Al-Ettifaq.

At the time, GOAL consulted a source who knows De Gea and was told the Spaniard was being “picky” about his next club. So it proved. The transfer window came and went and De Gea was still without a club.

The Spaniard returned to England in the new year and posted more videos of him training, this time at the home of National League side Altrincham, based near where De Gea used to live.

De Gea was believed to have trained there regularly, although one reporter who visited the stadium to try and find out more information was given short shrift by a security guard.

The De Gea mystery continued, with the goalkeeper continuing to be silent about his future plans and little word coming in the media. The fact that the Spaniard has not worked with an agent since cutting ties with Jorge Mendes in 2019 has made it harder for him to find a new club, as his inner circle of trusted friends do not have the network of contacts that agents can count upon.

It has also meant there are fewer genuine stories about his negotiations with clubs. The Athletic reported last week, just days before news of the interest from Genoa emerged, that De Gea’s priority was ‘a club and a city that guarantees stability for him and his family’, adding that he had received interest from Saudi Arabia, Italy and the United States.

That description was vague, to say the least, and it is tempting to conclude that the word stability could easily have been substituted for ‘well enumerated’.

Footballers will naturally want to earn as much as they can, but De Gea cannot command the same salary he earned at United, where he was on an astonishing £375,000 ($481k) per week.

United paid considerably over the odds when they tied him to that four-year deal in September 2019. By way of comparison, Ederson reportedly earns £190,000 ($242k) per week at Manchester City and Alisson is on an estimated £150,000 ($192k) per week at Liverpool. Still, De Gea could convincingly argue he was United’s most consistent performer at that time, when he was 28.

He had won the club’s Player of the Year award three out of the previous four years and had repeatedly got United out of jail under both Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. He was also Spain’s undisputed No.1. But circumstances are very different now.

De Gea is 33 and has not played competitive football for 15 months. He has not even trained regularly with a team in that period.

United had already deemed that his footwork was not good enough to compete at the level they desired. They replaced him with Onana, who is known far more for his ball skills than his shot-stopping abilities. But by that time, De Gea’s ability to keep the ball out had dramatically declined, with him performing badly in the FA Cup final defeat by Manchester City.

De Gea’s last match for Spain was in October 2020, when he made an error leading to Ukraine beating La Roja. He was an unused substitute at the subsequent European Championship and was left out of the squad altogether for the 2022 World Cup.

Given his fall in status and his struggles to adapt to the new kicking demands on goalkeepers, De Gea should be calling up clubs himself and offering his services at the lowest wage possible.

Any club that decided to take him on would be taking a big risk by putting their faith in a player who has been out of the game for so long. Genoa were offering him a return to one Europe’s top five leagues and the chance to live in one of Italy’s most charming cities, on the coast, with world-class cuisine. And he’d have been just a two-hour flight away from home. The fact that the move broke down due to his wage demands suggests his desire to return to football could not have been that great.

De Gea has one month to find another club that appeals to him. And if he is serious about returning to football, he would be advised to lower his standards. Even when he was still at United, the game was threatening to leave him behind.

To catch up with it again, he needs to make fewer cryptic posts and start putting the work in. And not just when the camera is rolling.