It may well have been the worst season in Manchester United history but a bloody good one in general for those fortunate few who have managed to escape Old Trafford.
Here’s a team of former Manchester United players, including those out on loan who have surely played their last game for the club, who would give Ruben Amorim’s lot an absolute hiding, even with some square pegs in round holes in the seemingly unworkable 3-4-3 formation.
GK: Dean Henderson (Crystal Palace)
There have been plenty of calls across the season for Manchester United to re-sign David De Gea, in a majestic combination of amnesia and arrogance given he was really quite terrible before he left the club and almost certainly wouldn’t want to leave his cushty gig for Conference League qualifiers Fiorentina to tend a goal barraged by opposition players behind a more deplorable United side than he had to endure in his time at Old Trafford.
We accept that he probably wouldn’t have been as bad as Andre Onana, but Dean Henderson would have been a marked improvement. He made the most of his good fortune in the FA Cup final to play a huge hand in helping Crystal Palace to their first trophy and has been consistently excellent all season.
CB: Aaron Wan-Bissaka (West Ham)
He’s been a near ever-present for West Ham and we suspect that would also have been the case had he stayed at United. Arguably West Ham’s best player this season and inarguably their most consistent.
Often criticised at United for failing to get forward enough from right-back, Wan-Bissaka’s seven Premier League goal contributions is comfortably more than any Red Devils defender/wing-back, with Diogo Dalot and Lisandro Martinez closest on a paltry three.
CB: Willy Kambwala (Villarreal)
The United academy graduate was very much an outsider at the start of his first season in Spain, featuring just once in the opening 17 La Liga games, but has forced himself into the side in the second half of the campaign, starting 12 games and playing in all-but three, at the expense of fellow Old Trafford defector Eric Bailly, to help Villarreal back into the Champions League.
CB: Alvaro Carreras (Benfica)
Presumably in a bid to drum up some sort of positivity after a God-awful season that’s set to precede a limited summer transfer window, Real Madrid being on the verge of completing the £42m signing of Carreras from Benfica is being widely reported as a ‘huge boost’ to United owing to their sell-on clause of around 40 per cent.
And sure, they could absolutely do with that cash, but that’s a well-discovered silver lining of a transfer for a left-back-cum-centre-back that United have been crying out for all season whom they sold to the Portuguese side for just £5m a year ago.
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RM: Antony Elanga (Nottingham Forest)
After Elanga covered 85 metres of the City Ground pitch in just nine seconds, taking seven touches, the last of which was a perfectly directed shot into the corner to beat Andre Onana, a report detailing the United chiefs’ ‘reservations’ ahead of sanctioning his £15m departure to Forest came to light.
They weren’t convinced Elanga could ‘parlay his phenomenal physical talents into breaking down stubborn defences’. Less than three weeks later the club were considering a summer move to re-sign him.
CM: Scott McTominay (Napoli)
We’re not going to pretend we ever thought Neapolitans would be visiting a McTominay shrine at the end of a debut season which has seen the Scot named Serie A’s Most Valuable Player after winning the Scudetto, and it’s obviously far more absurd in hindsight for United to have sanctioned his £25m exit, but it always felt weird that they were turning their nose up at an experienced academy graduate who had scored seven Premier League goals from midfield in his final season at Old Trafford.
All of his ‘pure profit’ cash being spent on half of Manuel Ugarte adds unnecessary salt to the wound.
CM: Fred (Fenerbahce)
It would have been almost too perfect after McTominay won his title for Fred to have done the same at Fenerbahce after years of the pair being castigated as one ‘McFred’ at the base of Manchester United’s midfield.
Fred and Fenerbahce fell short to the behemoth Galatasaray, but the Brazilian has managed five goals and six assists from midfield as a key part of Jose Mourinho’s side.
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LM: Antony (Real Betis)
He’s now got as many assists (5) in less than four months at Real Betis as he managed in two-and-a-half years at United and will match his Red Devils goal tally (12) if he scores a hat-trick in the Conference League final against Chelsea on Wednesday.
After two goals and an assist in the two-legged semi-final against Fiorentina and scoring in his final league game, having barely ever registered in the minds of opposition managers preparing to face United, Antony will be the player Enzo Maresca will be most wary about ahead of that game.
RAM: Mason Greenwood (Marseille)
A predictably fraught relationship with tough taskmaster Roberto De Zerbi has led to suggestions Greenwood could leave at the end of the season, but Marseille will be loathe to lose a guy who has topped the Ligue 1 goalscoring charts, level on 21 with Ousmane Dembele.
LAM: Marcus Rashford (Aston Villa)
Very, very funny that he ends the season with more Premier League goal contributions for United (5) than both Rasmus Hojlund (4) and Joshua Zirkzee (4) having not played a game for them since December 7, and having seen what he produced for Aston Villa since his January loan we have little doubt that a 20+ goal season will be in the offing next term no matter where he goes.
Not good enough for United? They’re not good enough for him.
ST: Romelu Lukaku (Napoli)
Two days on from United’s crushing Europa League final defeat, after McTominay scored the first goal in Napoli’s Scudetto-clinching victory over Cagliari to kick Red Devils fans while they were down, Lukaku aimed an entirely unnecessary boot at their nads by scoring the second, his 14th league goal of the season to go with his ten assists.