A Look at Goalkeeper Options and Replacing De Gea

Møllemanden

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If we already have a keeper on our books who we know can play in the PL, we might as well give him a shot. What’s the worst that can happen?
I agree. We might not get the distribution ETH wants, but overall Henderson is a good goalkeeper. We'll get rid of a goalkeeper that makes the entire team perpetually nervous. The biggest problem isn't replacing De Gea. The biggest problem is getting rid of him.
 

Ish

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It seems clear EtH wants a goalkeeper who’s excellent with their distribution, amongst other things, so where’s this clamour to give Henderson - who’s not really renowned for his distribution coming from all of a sudden? If it’s all budgetary concerns, the right thing to do would be to sell Henderson and use that towards finding a new GK.
 

edcunited1878

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It seems clear EtH wants a goalkeeper who’s excellent with their distribution, amongst other things, so where’s this clamour to give Henderson - who’s not really renowned for his distribution coming from all of a sudden? If it’s all budgetary concerns, the right thing to do would be to sell Henderson and use that towards finding a new GK.
Per usual, lots of revisionism.

Henderson is not the mentality nor skill needed at GK. DDG has been given a lifeline to stay at United but at severely reduced wages and zero guarantee of even playing, as it now should be.

All the stories about Onana corroborate and it's going to be a very new GK unit next year and for years to come.
 

Dazzmondo

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I mentioned Onana in this post:

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/a-l...ons-and-replacing-de-gea.477122/post-30669908

Doing a bit more digging, his shot-stopping (which looks terrible in this analysis which is top 5 leagues and league performances only - which for Onana is just 22 league appearances this season) is good if one adds his Champions League and previous Eredivisie seasons. It’s somewhat bizarre that he’s been terrible in the league this season but elite in the Champions League and in previous seasons. Just goes to show the limitations of a small sample size.

His sweeping seems to have dropped a lot since the transfer to Inter, it’s hard to say if this is a change in his style or Inter’s setup, but at Ajax he definitely displayed the ability to sweep regularly and high up the pitch.

You can look at previous seasons stats below.

https://fbref.com/en/players/e9c0c1b2/scout/3269/Andre-Onana-Scouting-Report
I've watched Onana loads of times and he's always been a clearly excellent keeper. Looking at these stats you'd think he was terrible, which I know is definitely not true. I've not seen Costa as much admittedly, but he has been poor and made mistakes almost every time I've watched him, yet the stats make him look like the best keeper in the world. Maybe the Costa games I watched were just unfortunate, but tbh I'm really starting to question how reliable these type of stats are after seeing how Onana stacks up.
 

Gandalf

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DDG - the best paid goalkeeper in the world who is now, objectively, one of the very worst performing goalkeepers in Europe’s big leagues, and who is now refusing to take a very reasonable pay cut which would still see him extremely well paid, because he still believes he’s worth more, despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary.

Yes, absolutely nothing about that says ‘egotistical cnut’, you’re right…
The bolded is pure speculation on your part, all of the reporting says that he is quite open to reducing his salary and the sticking point is more to do with what his role is going to be moving forward. I want to see the position upgraded but it is hardly egotistical for the current PL golden glove winner to feel he should be the first choice at his club, it is just time for that club to be somewhere other than Manchester.
 

BorisManUtd

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It seems clear EtH wants a goalkeeper who’s excellent with their distribution, amongst other things, so where’s this clamour to give Henderson - who’s not really renowned for his distribution coming from all of a sudden? If it’s all budgetary concerns, the right thing to do would be to sell Henderson and use that towards finding a new GK.
Think Henderson with his strenghts will be great goalkeeper for lower PL club like he was/has been for Sheffield United, Forest etc. And we should get decent money for him as well.
 

Ish

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Per usual, lots of revisionism.

Henderson is not the mentality nor skill needed at GK. DDG has been given a lifeline to stay at United but at severely reduced wages and zero guarantee of even playing, as it now should be.

All the stories about Onana corroborate and it's going to be a very new GK unit next year and for years to come.
Yeah, it is. Hopefully we invest in a good keeper.
Think Henderson with his strenghts will be great goalkeeper for lower PL club like he was/has been for Sheffield United, Forest etc. And we should get decent money for him as well.
Absolutely, which makes the “pragmatic/budgetary constraints” cries to keep Henderson even more mind boggling. He could fetch us a decent fee which we can reinvest to find a more suitable goalkeeper.
 

Devil You Know

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It seems clear EtH wants a goalkeeper who’s excellent with their distribution, amongst other things, so where’s this clamour to give Henderson - who’s not really renowned for his distribution coming from all of a sudden? If it’s all budgetary concerns, the right thing to do would be to sell Henderson and use that towards finding a new GK.
Per usual, lots of revisionism.

Henderson is not the mentality nor skill needed at GK. DDG has been given a lifeline to stay at United but at severely reduced wages and zero guarantee of even playing, as it now should be.

All the stories about Onana corroborate and it's going to be a very new GK unit next year and for years to come.
Nobody is clamouring for Henderson. Maybe one or two people are resigned to him staying due to lack of funds. That's the sum of it. 99% want somebody new.
 

sifi36

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I've watched Onana loads of times and he's always been a clearly excellent keeper. Looking at these stats you'd think he was terrible, which I know is definitely not true. I've not seen Costa as much admittedly, but he has been poor and made mistakes almost every time I've watched him, yet the stats make him look like the best keeper in the world. Maybe the Costa games I watched were just unfortunate, but tbh I'm really starting to question how reliable these type of stats are after seeing how Onana stacks up.
I think you misunderstand my post, or I haven’t expressed myself well enough. Whilst the small sample of just this season’s league performances look poor, he scores well across the board when increasing the sample to include the Champions League and his time at Ajax.

His time in the league at Inter isn’t enough to draw conclusions from (22 league appearances isn’t enough for any player) and due to the limitations of free data it would be rather time-consuming for a hobbyist like me to expand the dataset. The raw data would suggest his previous seasons and Champions League performances are excellent and, if I were to be inclined, I suspect his ratings relative to the OP would shoot up massively.

Please don’t take my previous post as any sort of conclusion on him, the sample isn’t large enough.
 

ifightdragons

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DDG - the best paid goalkeeper in the world who is now, objectively, one of the very worst performing goalkeepers in Europe’s big leagues, and who is now refusing to take a very reasonable pay cut which would still see him extremely well paid, because he still believes he’s worth more, despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary.

Yes, absolutely nothing about that says ‘egotistical cnut’, you’re right…
Thanks for posting this. If anyone is egotistical and delusional about their skill level, it's DDG.
 

bosnian_red

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Kind of crazy that we are days away from his contract being out and we don't know what's going on one way or another. Messiest possible end to his time here, don't like it.
 

RedOrange

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Kind of crazy that we are days away from his contract being out and we don't know what's going on one way or another. Messiest possible end to his time here, don't like it.
I really don't think the club has any intention of keeping him at this point. They're looking for a better keeper, and they've got Henderson as insurance.
 

Teja

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Kind of crazy that we are days away from his contract being out and we don't know what's going on one way or another. Messiest possible end to his time here, don't like it.
I feel like we're kicking the wheels just waiting for the ownership situation to conclude. Many reports that it might take the whole summer but maybe we're a lot closer than what people think.
 

Oranges038

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Yes, I think some people here are overstating the impact a shiny brand new goalkeeper will have on our overall play. Just cutting out all of DDG’s feck-ups will see us improve, imo, and we don’t need to break the bank to do that. If we already have a keeper on our books who we know can play in the PL, we might as well give him a shot. What’s the worst that can happen?
He could be end up being decent.... or even worse prove that people were wrong about how good they thought DDG was all along.
 

Someone

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I want him gone but once again we can't be decisive and end up looking like clowns.

The right thing to do was to tell him from the start that we won't renew. You don't send an offer then take it back and send another one. Very disrespectful.
 

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I want him gone but once again we can't be decisive and end up looking like clowns.

The right thing to do was to tell him from the start that we won't renew. You don't send an offer then take it back and send another one. Very disrespectful.
Zero proactive planning. We've known about his limitations forever - there's nothing new there. So we really should've gone into last season knowing whether we were going to keep him or let him go. Instead, the club dithered, punted the decision until the last minute, and now we're scrambling to find an adequate replacement.

Amateur stuff.
 

Remember the geese

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It has been apparent for years that we needed a new first choice keeper. Something that mere fans like myself could see, yet the club have only now just realised. Even then, they seemingly fumbled their way to this conclusion.
 

Someone

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Zero proactive planning. We've known about his limitations forever - there's nothing new there. So we really should've gone into last season knowing whether we were going to keep him or let him go. Instead, the club dithered, punted the decision until the last minute, and now we're scrambling to find an adequate replacement.

Amateur stuff.
We aren't even fully out of the deal yet, which means that now in late June we still have a clear plan on the GK situation.
 

Big Ben Foster

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We aren't even fully out of the deal yet, which means that now in late June we still have a clear plan on the GK situation.
Right. And it's impacting our ability to not only bring in a replacement, but also ship out Henderson who clearly doesn't want to be here and whose sale would free up much-needed transfer funds.
 

Chesterlestreet

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My take:

1) He's not a good fit for ETH. And he'll only get worse. In fact, he'll get worse for any kind of system. So, he should go to the Saudi league if there's genuine interest there (it probably is).

2) We should absolutely not go for Henderson. He's an utterly mediocre GK.
 

Rocksy

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Someone commented that Henderson could play because De Gea makes the team nervous, but Henderson has the same effect for different reasons. He was pretty dodgy when he got his run a couple of years back, and at Forest his screaming his head off and punching the ground all the time.
 

Teja

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Zero proactive planning. We've known about his limitations forever - there's nothing new there. So we really should've gone into last season knowing whether we were going to keep him or let him go. Instead, the club dithered, punted the decision until the last minute, and now we're scrambling to find an adequate replacement.

Amateur stuff.
I'm not buying that our structure changed after Woodward left. They mostly still have no clue what they're doing. You could see it to an extent with the Antony panic buy. You can still see us struggling to sell players while Chelsea (who everyone and their grandmother knew had a bloated squad) managed to offload several players already. The pace of deal making is so slow - the same one deal at a time nonsense it seems. They spent their energy on Mount while knowing DDG will leave and now are in a weaker negotiating position as a result.

They also failed at getting any smart free / cheap signings over the line given our budgetary restrictions. Verbruggen (20M Eur) could've been the DDG backup if they wanted to keep him. Rabiot didn't join on a free. Seemingly not interested in other quality players from relegated clubs like Maddison, Lavia etc. I'm pretty sure I missed a few in that list. If the budget is such a big issue (as has been reported) and we knew this since the takeover talks started, surely you need a plan for a few value for money signings?

If I were Jassim I'd immediately fire the entire data science and player recruitment leadership and start from scratch. Our scouting still seems decent, but the decision making / planning at the top level is atrocious.

Arnold did the smart thing by distancing himself from that mess.
 
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flappyjay

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I'm not buying that our structure changed after Woodward left. They mostly still have no clue what they're doing. You could see it to an extent with the Antony panic buy. You can still see us struggling to sell players while Chelsea (who everyone and their grandmother knew had a bloated squad) managed to offload several players already. The pace of deal making is so slow - the same one deal at a time nonsense it seems. They spent their energy on Mount while knowing DDG will leave and now are in a weaker negotiating position as a result.

If I were Jassim I'd immediately fire the entire data science and player recruitment leadership and start from scratch. Our scouting still seems decent, but the decision making / planning at the top level is atrocious.

Arnold did the smart thing by distancing himself from that mess.
There are still some people convincing themselves and making excuses but it seems no different. Last summerwas no different to a Woodward summer and this summer is starting out like a Woodward summer.
 

ifightdragons

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Someone commented that Henderson could play because De Gea makes the team nervous, but Henderson has the same effect for different reasons. He was pretty dodgy when he got his run a couple of years back, and at Forest his screaming his head off and punching the ground all the time.
You clearly didn't watch his two full seasons at Sheffield United. He was really good, and a key player.

He actually did better than De Gea in his run at United. You just remember the clanger he made, but completely ignored or forgot how he performed in the rest of his 26-game run.

Anyone would be frustrated at Forest this season. They were a complete shambles, and were lucky not to get relegated, having scraped some ugly, counter-attacking wins near the end. He had a very good start to the season before his injury, and still outperformed Navas. Forest were always bound to concede tons of chances and goals this season. They were truly awful.

I get that you might not like Henderson. But your assessment of him way too skewed.
 
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Cantonagotmehere

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Serious question here, don't shoot me. Is Henderson good enough for a stop gap when we cannot spend much? If the bridges can be 'un-burned' after that awful interview he gave?
 

ifightdragons

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Serious question here, don't shoot me. Is Henderson good enough for a stop gap when we cannot spend much? If the bridges can be 'un-burned' after that awful interview he gave?
Good question. Yes, he absolutely is good enough as a stop gap.

He isn't world class like Costa or Onana.
But he is still an improvement on De Gea in almost every area, and has consistently outperformed him on crosses, 1v1 and sweeping. Henderson also commands and directs his defense well and with confidence, something De Gea is completely unable or unwilling to do. Henderson is also one of the best penalty savers in the league, which is an important factor in cup competitions.

DDG is better at stopping long shots, but that's about it.
 

Gandalf

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Thanks for posting this. If anyone is egotistical and delusional about their skill level, it's DDG.
Yet now we find out he agreed a salary reduction and actually signed off on it and then the club backed out which is not the narrative that was being pushed before.

To be clear again, I do want us to upgrade this summer but I really dislike the way that so many supporters feel the need to abuse and denigrate a player who has given good service to the club and at his peak was one of the best in the world. Everything has its time and we need to part ways with DDG now but please god can we do it with a bit of dignity and not act like a bunch of Arsenal supporters.
 

Rauður Djöfull

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Henderson should never play for man UTD again

He has disrespected the club with his comments and clearly has no desire to stay or play for United anymore
 

Oh_Dear

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OK so Onana is clearly a better ball playing GK than De Gea (not saying much) but I don't know much else about him. Is he the kind of keeper who dominates his box and comes for crosses or is he glued to the goal line when the opposition are on the attack? And what about his handling / reactions etc? The videos I've seen just show him passing out from the back which makes me worried about what isn't shown.....
 

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OK so Onana is clearly a better ball playing GK than De Gea (not saying much) but I don't know much else about him. Is he the kind of keeper who dominates his box and comes for crosses or is he glued to the goal line when the opposition are on the attack? And what about his handling / reactions etc? The videos I've seen just show him passing out from the back which makes me worried about what isn't shown.....
The only match I have seen this Onana play was against City in the CL final and I thought he did very well.
Like many othe4 on here and beyond I can not believe a club as big as Utd make such a mess of the goalkeeping position and to offer De Gea an extension which he signs then the club back out of is more amateurish than Forest Green, it really is a very bad reflection on how the club is run and heads should roll for this debacle.
 

dannyrhinos89

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Is Kaylor Navas available?

we could get Onana as the number 1 then loan Navas as our number 2.
 

ifightdragons

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Is Kaylor Navas available?

we could get Onana as the number 1 then loan Navas as our number 2.
Keylor Navas isn't much better than Tom Heaton. And that's not even a joke.

But I feel bad for us hindering Heaton going to Luton as first choice goalkeeper, so Navas isn't a bad idea!

He's just not as good as people seem to think he is.
 

dannyrhinos89

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Keylor Navas isn't much better than Tom Heaton. And that's not even a joke.

But I feel bad for us hindering Heaton going to Luton as first choice goalkeeper, so Navas isn't a bad idea!

He's just not as good as people seem to think he is.

Navas was great for forest last season from the games I saw on TV anyway.