His form and game is all over the shop but I really hope we stick with him for next season at least. If he’s still all over the shop then we can start the search again. We have to be quicker to move on players who aren’t consistent enough or who don’t settle well here.
24
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 46
- Clean sheets
- 12
- Goals
- 0
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 6
I've said this before.
He has a wider stance and is more flat footed than he should be, so when he's not playing well and his timing is off, he's going to look like he's diving slower or after the ball has gone past him, particularly on those lower shots where he takes that false step and almost just falls over rather than dives.
DDG's powers were waning in his last season for sure, but had he stayed on I reckon he'd have performed better than Onana week in week out. Onano makes the odd decent save for sure, but all keepers should be doing that as standard. What they shouldn't be doing is making howlers on a regular basis. Onana does exactly this. I really don't see him improving enough here to cut that shit out.
WTF, you're quoting the Orange idiot nowDe Gea wasn't perfect but he often made saves when he shouldnt have and helped us bigly. Onana has made a few good saves tbf, but too went in where you're just thinking the dreaded and caf-forbidden thought "I bet De Gea would have saved that!"
I do it sarcastically. Settle down now. Got a 10 reaction score to keep up.
I get that we wanted to move on from De Gea towards a keeper who could play the ball and suit the style of play ETH wants. However, saving shots is still the primary duty of a goalie. So we really should have recruited one who did both really well or stuck with De Gea until we did locate one.
Onana is quite significantly out performing his xg at united to be fair, don't entirely trust that stat but shows he is doing something right I guess
We all know he isn't a great shot stopper though.
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He can be at times though, he has pulled off some miracle saves. The issue with him is reliability, he will make wonder saves out of nowhere only to screw up and let in a soft goal 5 minutes after.
Bit on average nowhere near as good a stopper as De Gea.
The stats have him - on average - no worse a shot stopper than DDG of the last few seasons. Might actually be better?
EDIT: Checked and yes, Onana this season > DDG last season as a shot stopper, using PSxG, a metric that factors in the quality of chance saved.
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But he isn't that great of a shot stopper. We all know that from watching him play. And PSxG isn't a great metric either.
It's actually funny.
Despite all the evidence to the contrary people still heralded DDG as the best shot stopper in the world, even though he was just about the same as every other average PL keeper. Onana is actually performing above average in terms of overall shot stopping. Something DDG didn't do for about 5 years. But yet, he's still not considered a better shot stopper than him. Even though all the evidence suggests he's more reliable and is actually performing as one of the best in the league.
Onana has made some howlers and this, I feel, is what clouds people judgement of him, overall his shot stopping has been quite reliable but the few silly mistakes are remembered more. Where as with DDG it was the opposite, he'd let in soft goals make mistakes, he got beat at his near post more times than I care to remember, but the focus would be on the couple of highlight reel saves.
Agree with the De Gea stuff. His shot stopping had long declined and he was guilty of numerous costly howlers.
However those shot stopping stats for Onana should really factor in the fact he faces more shots than most keepers due to the incompetency ahead of him. And most keepers can make saves. But it’s not just Onanas howlers, he’s also let in several goals he could have not let in if he had positioned himself better or at least given himself a better chance of saving. I think of the Bayern goal, the Forest goal (at OT) and in general he’s just very poor at coming off his line making himself big, closing angles etc. something de Gea excelled at for years before his decline.
Degea was terrible in his last few seasons and Onanas been a mediocre replacement when you look at everything.
It's funny to see some suddenly stand behind PSxG because I've called this out before.
Who has better PSxG-GA for the two prior league campaigns? De Gea and it's not even close.
So which is it was De Gea shit and Onana even worse or is the stat bollocks and we should use our eyes?
To use that stat as evidence of Onana actually having a good season means justifying its other measures.
What source are you using?
Fbref has PSxG-GA for Onana's final season at Inter and DDG's final season with United as exactly the same (-0.7)
Not good but not terrible. Although of course the main issue here is that shot stopping was/is trumpeted as one of DDG's great strengths. While Onana was primarily signed for his distribution and calmness on the ball. The fact that he's turned out to be a better shot stopper than DDG is a bonus but also highlights how so many people were badly overrating DDG's ability at stopping shots.
None of which is an excuse for the soft goals Onana has let in so far. It's never good when a keeper lets in soft goals.
So Ali we should stick with him in the summer or be quicker to move on players who are not good enough? Because it's evident for months that Onana is not the guy that should be on goal now, never mind next season.
Exactly this. He is so painfully average at his main responsibility it really doesn’t matter he can play out. He isn’t even doing that at the moment either.
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Yep, totally agree.
Senegal's third goal illustrates the footwork issue pretty well. He's basically falling over as Mane hits the ball, so he can't generate any spring to get nearer the ball.
A good goalkeeping coach could probably alter this tendency; he is not in a good position to spring laterally.
DDG was good at closing angles, but he did not excel at making himself big, quite the opposite in fact, he shied away from physical contact at every opportunity.
The stats do reflect the difficulty of the chances faced. Onana has made mistakes and there are some goals you could say, yeah, he should have done better there. The problem with him is this trade off between elite shot stopping and his overall contribution to the team in terms of commanding his box, which he hasn't done. Sweeping, which has been less than expected. And his ball playing ability, which also hasn't been as effective as had been expected. In a high functioning team he's not going to be as exposed to the high volume of chances against he has been and his strengths would be more on show.
All in, his overall game hasn't been anywhere near as good as what should be expected. I'm not going to lie I expected his sweeping and cross claiming to be better. L But, this idea that his shot stopping has been a massive downgrade on the previous keeper is utter nonsense. There are some quite obvious fundamental looking flaws with his footwork and diving technique, but leaving that aside.
There are also lot of factors that will affect his performances levels, changing defence, settling in, confidence etc.
Confidence and concentration are the big ones for me. He seems to concentrate more on watching the ball and is not controlling his own positioning and movement to react to where the ball is going until it's too late.
But also as a keeper confidence is crucial, it effects everything, timing and decision making being the most affected. If his confidence is down, his timing is slightly off, even by a fraction of second, he's not moving his feet quick enough or he steps a this is why he seems to dive after the ball has gone past him. He seems like a confident guy outside, but maybe his self confidence is whithering and eating away at him.
There was an article in theatheltic about that from when he was at Ajax, apparently they tried to change it. But, it worked for him at the time and they decided agaisnt it.
Looks like he will be back soon. Shame.
I cannot remember a significant miracle save - that might be a me issue though. I no longer have the heart in the mouth moments when Dave had the ball at his feet or the certainty that we were straight giving possession back when he had time on the ball to hoof it nowhere. I don’t think Onana is the answer to the question if the question is shot stopping but if the question is can we have our keeper out 15 metres behind a high defensive line (which we haven’t seen much of this season) then maybe he is.
He’s just awful. He’s standing on his heels most on the time, so he’s either slow to dive or just sits down when a shot comes his way. He doesn’t do the goalkeeping basics well at all.
I remember him having some great saves against Everton and even one save from a header v Luton at a game I was at. I think Everton's xG against us was over 2 so he will have overperformed in that game alone by over two goals.
Will be shocked if he's still our goalkeeper by August. Total dud who isn't even great with his feet to be honest.
Cameroon have dropped him from the starting line-up for today's game against Gambia.
He isnt a dud, he'll probably be better once he actually has a defence in front of him and people stop blaming him for goals that wernt his fault.
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That's a really new low, surely that's his confidence gone?
Isn’t that for disciplinary reasons though? Thought I read something a couple of days ago about him having another bust-up with Eto’o over something
Having to play in goal for Man Utd every week with no defence in front of and then being blamed for almost every goal we conceed will have ruined his confidence.
Looks like Rigobert Song isn't as scared as ETH. Onana probably starting vs Newport now! 
It'll be another row with Song or whatever.
Whether you rate him or not, he's very clearly Cameroon's best keeper by miles and miles. The bloke playing today has played one game for one of the worst teams in the French third tier after spending the last couple of years in the Latvian league.
Football didn't start in 2023 and we have years of evidence of this being factually incorrect.
This guy called his bluff when he threatened to retire from the NT, then dropped him in the first game even though he made it in time.Looks like Rigobert Song isn't as scared as ETH. Onana probably starting vs Newport now!
I would imagine his inability to master the basics of the position that most U18 keepers know has also contributed to his loss of confidence.