After a difficult start to his time at United, De Gea just about ended on the positive side of the ledger. Sir Alex Ferguson is optimistic the 21-year-old will benefit massively from last term's experiences and his predecessor has told De Gea to forget about those who came before him.
"Maybe it was hard to follow in my footsteps," said Van der Sar. "It can happen. People got compared to Peter Schmeichel, now maybe it's me. De Gea has to ignore that and just play his own game. Eric Steele, the goalkeeping coach, and the manager will both help him and hopefully next season he will be ready from the start."
Van der Sar does not view the Spaniard's individual mistakes as being a significant problem. And he assumes United did all the background checks on De Gea before spending £18million to sign him from Atletico Madrid last summer, so the physical aspect should not be a problem.
"He did get criticism last season but I made mistakes at Ajax when I was young, and also at Juventus and United," said Van der Sar.
"The main thing is how you recover in the next game, or the game itself. He did that. He became more important as the season went on and made good saves. I have not seen him in his shorts, so physically, it is difficult to say how big he actually is. But I am sure United knew all that when they signed him, so would have been aware of what to expect."
Winner of four league titles during his own spell at Old Trafford, Van der Sar watched the final day proceedings unfold with interest at home.
Like most observers of a Red Devils persuasion, he was left shattered by Manchester City's injury-time triumph.
"Whilst I don't think they anticipated becoming champions, the disappointment at those final two or three minutes would have been great," he said. "If you look at it, they did quite well. They got more points than last year and kept a lot of clean sheets, even with Nemanja Vidic out for so long.
"To lose it in the last seconds must have hurt so much. I remember a couple of years ago we seemed to have a run of games where we beat them in the last minute. They just got a very big one back."
Source: PA
Source: PA