Enzo Maresca has revealed that Gianluigi Donnarumma is taking his recent Manchester City mistakes in stride, insisting the goalkeeper's confidence remains unaffected. The Italian shot-stopper was at fault for RB Leipzig's opening goal on Wednesday and produced several other shaky moments during the match, extending a run of patchy form.
Despite the errors, Donnarumma did make an excellent save from Christoph Baumgartner and has contributed important stops as Maresca's side have started strongly across all competitions. However, the mistakes that have accompanied that good work have proven costly in recent games.
Manager's assessment of Donnarumma's mindset
City's manager has held conversations with his goalkeeper but believes the fellow Italian is already aware of the improvements needed. With no immediate pressure from Geronimo Rulli for the starting spot, attention will remain on Donnarumma as City look to avoid three consecutive league defeats when they travel to Forest.
"He's good, overall he's good. He's quite relaxed, in terms of he recognises that he has done some mistakes but at the same time, as I said after the last game, also he has made some good saves. So it's just a matter of balance, try to avoid mistakes and continue to do the right things," said Maresca.
Communication and recognition of errors
Maresca noted that communication with Donnarumma is straightforward given their shared language. "It's much more easy for the language for me with Gigio. There are players that when they make some mistake you need conversation with them, and there are players that when they make some mistake you just need eye contact to understand that he recognises, he knows."
"With Gigio it's quite easy because every time he has made some mistake or something that was not correct, he recognises immediately. I spoke with Gigio, but again sometimes you don't need to be so deep with some players because you know that they know that they have made a mistake and they recognise that and just try to avoid that and move on."
