Why Manchester United did not replace David de Gea with Dean Henderson for penalty shootout
De Gea #DeGea
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer claims he did consider substituting David de Gea for Dean Henderson ahead of Manchester United’s penalty shootout defeat to Villarreal.
De Gea has an infamously poor penalty record and has now conceded the last 40 he has faced in regulation time and penalty shootouts for United and Spain, after Villarreal won 11-10 on spotkicks in the Europa League final.
The Spaniard has not saved a penalty for United since the denial of Everton striker Romelu Lukaku in the 2016 FA Cup semi-final, while Henderson thwarted Manchester City striker Gabriel Jesus from 12 yards while on loan at Sheffield United last season. Henderson also stopped penalties in the 2019 Under-21 European Championship and the 2018 League One Play-off final.
Louis van Gaal memorably replaced Netherlands goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen with Tim Krul for the 2014 World Cup shootout against Costa Rica that the Dutch won 4-2, with Krul saving two penalties.
However, Solskjaer sent on Alex Telles and Juan Mata – his final two substitutions in added time – to take penalties.
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“You go through every scenario, of course,” Solskjaer explained. “And it had crossed my mind in the build-up to the game but we were confident in David and prepared.
“Anything can happen in a penalty shootout. I stuck with the ‘keeper who played all of the game.
“I’ve got to say the penalty shootout was high quality, but we didn’t do enough in the 120 minutes to score more goals and that’s the disappointing bit.
“We had pressure, we had moments where we felt if we can just kick on a little bit now we can get a goal. But we just couldn’t.”
Bruno Fernandes, United’s captain in the absence of the injured Harry Maguire, appeared to choose for the team to go second in the shootout when the majority of sides who go first win.
“I’ve not asked Bruno who won the toss,” Solskjaer added. “I let him get on with it, we had penalty-takers with confdience, we made some changes to get them on and take the penalties.
“Just couldn’t stop them scoring.”