David De Gea is arguably the most important player in a team consisting of Cristiano Ronaldo, and is simply undroppable at the moment. He has been carrying the United team on his back throughout this entire season in the Ole, Carrick and even Ragnick regime. He looks to be back in his prime and best, finally recapturing the form that saw Real links back in 2015. Despite being the arguably best keeper in the world on form at the moment, the majorly underperforming team around him and a managerial merry-go-round has got United 7th in the league, crashed out of the Carabao Cup third round, and barely qualified for the CL last 16. But it could have been worse.
So much worse.
You see, had things gone to Ole’s plan, Dean Henderson would have been first choice. The only reason he hasn’t been first choice this season was because he missed the start of the season through illness. While Dean Henderson is a decent keeper, if we had him in goal instead of De Gea and his insane reflex time, I dread to think where we would be. Originally my first article back from a very long hiatus was going to be about the first eleven and January signings Ragnick should use, but in writing the first paragraph of that article about the goalkeeper which should have been easy, I found myself contemplating the horrors of the situation United could have been in. I do intend to write the aforementioned article later on, but for now I’ve decided to focus on a what-if scenario. So what if De Gea didn’t start for Manchester United this season?
Let’s take this month by month, starting with August and Leeds United, back when the title looked to be a genuine possibility and Ole was at the wheel. Leeds United was a huge win for United in real life so surely changing the goalkeeper wouldn’t make too much of an impact right? Surprisingly, right. De Gea didn’t actually have much to do that game and with Henderson in goal, United would still win 5-1. But for those of you looking for a United collapse in this article, don’t worry because you don’t have to wait a minute to watch it all go wrong in the very next fixture against Southampton. Quite literally as without De Gea, Ward-Prowse would have scored that free kick in the 55th second to give Southampton a very early lead. A Fred own goal would make it 2-0. Greenwood would score again to bring it back to 2-1, but it wouldn’t be enough and United would lose their first game of the season. To clarify, this wouldn’t impact any of the transfers as 1 loss wouldn’t steer a player away from signing, so Ronaldo would still join and James would still leave. The only difference is that instead of Ronaldo’s return being celebrated with a 1-0 Wolves win, any hype would be destroyed with a huge loss to wolves. Without the amazing reflexes, experienced composure and defensive organization skills for De Gea, we would see 3 early goals with Jiminez scoring in the second minute, Trincao scoring in the fifth minute, and Moutinho scoring in the 13th minute while a later 68th minute goal from Saiss would condemn United to a 4-0 loss.
After an underwhelming August we would move to September, which we start as Ronaldo makes his second debut for United against Newcastle. This was a routine 4-1 win for United in real life and it would be a routine win once more as Henderson wouldn’t spoil Ronaldo’s 4-1 thumping return. In fact, against Young Boys in the CL, Dean Henderson’s sweeper keeper tendencies would allow him to save that last minute chance against Young Boys and United would salvage a point from their first CL game. Could things finally be on the up? No. West Ham are next up in the Premier League, and without De Gea to save Noble’s last minute penalty, United would only gain a point from this fixture. De Gea finally re-enters the scene for the Carabao Cup and with him in net, I’d back United to win a penalty shoot-out against West-Ham and advance to the next round of the Carabao Cup. However, United would proceed to lose to Aston Villa 1-0 and to Villarreal 3-1 to leave September in disappointing fashion.
October wouldn’t start off well as without De Gea in the team, Demari Gray would convert Everton’s only other shot on target to win the game for them 2-1. The next few games wouldn’t go any better, ending in a 5-2 loss to Leicester and a 3-1 loss to Atalanta, heading into that dreaded Liverpool game. With De Gea, we were absolutely thrashed in a 5-0 thumping, but without De Gea, it could have been worse. De Gea made several world class reactionary saves, and without them we would have lost that game SEVEN TO NIL. Yes that’s right SEVEN TO NIL. A defeat that would go down as the worst in the club’s history, and to rub salt into the wound it was against their biggest rivals. A loss that would see United 10 points off the top 4 and 15 points off the title by matchday 9 – not even a quarter of the way to the end of the season. They would find themselves SEVENTEENTH, behind Leeds United and a freak Burnley or Newcastle win away from the relegation zone. They would have 1 point in their CL group, only above Young Boys on h2h goals away, and literally an Atalanta loss away from CL elimination. Ole would not be given time for obvious reasons and would be sacked right after the Liverpool game. Carrick would fill in for the R16 match against City in the Carabao in which United would be humiliated, and Antonio Conte would end up at Old Trafford instead of Spurs. It did take Conte time to adapt and with just a day to train the team, he’d bore the crowd in his first game with a 0-0 draw to round off October. For the record, Henderson would still be first choice keeper.
With little time to prepare, Conte would start November with a loss to Atalanta, knocking out Man United from the CL. Conte would also lose to Man City 2-0, officially putting Manchester United into the relegation zone on goal difference on Matchday 11. Luckily, for the sake of my sanity and the sanity of United fans across the world, Conte would grind out a 2-1 win against Watford to drag us out of the relegation zone just as soon as we entered it. That would be followed by Conte finally getting this team together to beat Villareal in the CL and a hard fought draw to Chelsea, which meant United would end November out of the CL but in the driver’s seat to finish 3rd, and to drag themselves out of danger into 17th, but with Burnley having a game in hand.
December is when things finally turn around. Sure United would still not be utilizing De Gea’s brilliance in favour of Henderson, but with Conte’s defensively sound team, Henderson would do perfectly fine. Conte would beat Arsenal 2-0, Palace 1-0, draw to young boys 0-0, beat Norwich 1-0, beat Newcastle 2-1, and beat Burnley 1-0. This great run of form would in a way rescue Manchester United, bringing them back up the table ironically into 7th with 26 points eliminating any fear of relegation, and guaranteeing themself a spot in the first knockout round of the Europa League.
As I am writing this before the Burnley match, I cannot say for sure where United are right now. In a best case scenario, they’ve beat Burnley to bring themselves to 31 points, with a game in hand that could bring them to 34 points, 1 point off Arsenal in 4th (which will most likely become 2 points of Tottenham in 4th after their games in hand). In a worst case scenario, we lose to Burnley, and stay in 7th with 28 points. Reflecting on this, things aren’t as bad as I would have thought them to be. Sure, the start of the season would be extremely chaotic and United would at one point be in the relegation zone, but Conte would steady the ship, even with Henderson in goal to guide us back, holding on for dear life in the top 4 race. We still get eliminated rather early in the carabao cup so the only main difference is that we’re dropping down to the Europa League, and with Ronaldo up against the likes of Olympiacos, perhaps that’s a trophy Conte could win. But anyways, that concludes this blog post, you can expect the next blog post to be about Ragnick’s United team as mentioned at the start, or even expanding on this what if scenario in a part 2 to how the rest of the season would play out, unless something crazy happens which requires my utmost attention. And on that note, to speak the words I haven’t spoken in what feels like an eternity, this is Jacob King, and I’ll see you at full time!