Simple answer - just ok. Not great. Not terrible. He saves the shots you’d expect him to save but does have a habit of blocking them into dangerous areas and hasn’t made many really exceptional saves yet. He’s much better with the ball at his feet than DDG. And better at sweeping up behind the defence. Which is a nice upgrade. What I’ve been most disappointed about is dealing with high balls in and around our six yard box. DDG was always pretty terrible in those situations, so it wouldn’t have been difficult to look better but there’s no noticeable difference. Which is not ideal. I think/hope this will improve as he gets more confident. If not, then he’ll go down as yet another bad signing.
24
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 50
- Clean sheets
- 13
- Goals
- 0
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 6
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
I wonder how much the opening day vs. Wolves plays on his mind in that regard? He was looking pretty decisive and then that happened and such a huge fuss was made out of it.
Yeah, maybe? Used to drive me up the fecking wall when a ball would be dropping vertically close to our goal and DDG wouldn’t claim it. Either leaving for a defender to head or flapping at it. Same thing happened in one of our recent matches and it killed me to see Onana do the same. If he has mild PTSD after Wolves drama that would explain it but he needs to get his shit together.
If you are looking for a turning point, then it's probably the moment when he got lobbed from the halfway line and fell inside his own goal during preseason. That took a lot of mojo from him. He was already rooted to his line in the Wolves game.
Vicario is having no such problems at Spurs. Ederson and Alisson settled well into their teams from day one.
There is nothing normal or typical about Onana’s start here, this has been a disaster so far. There’s also a medium between an inconsistent start due to being at a new club and costing your team several points.
It could be excused if he was a younger goalkeeper as it was with DDG who was skinny as feck and couldn’t speak the language and was put on the big stage. Onana is an experienced goalie who should be at the top of his game.
The issue with Onana isn’t just limited to his performance but his technique for a goalie is honestly frightening. I just don’t see how he won’t continue to let in shots that he should be saving going forward.
I agree with your assessment that Areola is a better all-around keeper than Onana, whose one exceptional attribute is his footwork but who is substandard in all other aspects of what one would expect of a Manchester United keeper. But ETH had this daft idea in his head that a ball playing keeper would enhance our ability to recycle possession and improve the quality of our shots on goal.
All things being equal, of course we would all want a brilliant ball playing keeper over an average ball playing keeper, but the idea that a brilliant ball playing keeper would somehow transform our attack from poor to respectable, if not brilliant, will be laughed at for generations to come.
But of course not all things are equal and what we ended up doing with the keeper swap was to bring in a brilliant ball playing keeper who has made zero impact on our prowess in possession and attack but whose clumsiness in shot stopping has caused us to lose matches we should have won.
Being lobbed from half way has feck all to do with how he deals with high balls in his own box. That will only affect his starting position when the ball is in the opposition half. Which has been very high for most of this season, especially recently. Much higher than DDG ever was.
That daft idea exists in your head and your head only. In fact, it's a daft idea that's bordering on a full on deranged obsession. No matter how many times it's pointed out to you that literally nobody claimed Onana would transform our attack (and no matter how often you fail to find any posts to support your notion) you keep banging on and on and on and on about it. It's very strange behaviour.
Agreed. The abject humiliation of being lobbed from half way during his debut is a psychological stain will endure within his mind for a long time.
At least they are consistent.
Do we really analyse their performances as much though?
They all make errors.
Nobody really cared too much when Vicario did that weird diving punch on the floor that they conceded from. Onana would get slated for it on here.
Same thing with Trafford at Burnley, mentioned a few times on these forums as someone we should buy. Guy was lobbed against Bournemouth and megged at his near post against Liverpool the other week. Nobody really cares though.
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Seems completely unnecessary for him to do that in my opinion, not really helping his preparation for either and it's not like he's playing so well that he is desperately needed. It was a good opportunity to give Altay Bayindir a chance and now Onana might not miss any games.
It's a weird one... I mean how shit must Bayindir be that we literally can't trust him to play in one home game!? And if thats the case (our number 2 being so shit that he can't play in one game) then why the feck did we sign him?
The armchair psychologist in me also wonders if this is Onana himself knowing he's been a bit terrible, and is worried about losing his place in the side if he's not here for one game - which isn't exactly a great mentality to have IMO (though I get some people will think the opposite and like that attitude).
Strange. So Ten Hag definitely doesn't trust Bayindir?
Watch him be the reason spurs beat us now with mistakes. That will put ETH further into the firing line.
Not playing well ? I mean against a high pressing Spurs , you don't want a guy whose best attributes are with his feet ?
Heard everything now.
Do you think he's playing well?
In your words “nobody cares” because the good considerably outweighs the bad. Go and have a look at Spurs fans opinion on Vicario and compare it to United fans with Onana that tells you all you need to know.
Whenever United fans start getting into the “but X player makes mistakes too” as their defence then you know we’re scraping for positives.
Gutted.
That's quite a good summation of it I imagine, I imagine he's afraid of that but I see that as a natural reaction really.
He doesn’t think he’s as good as Onana. But we knew that already. That’s why he’s number two.
He really is "number two" if he's worse than Onana.
I've documented over and over (I would use all caps but out of respect for your impressive willful denial I won't resort to such a tactic) the "transformation" mania that gripped United supporters in June and July of 2023. We don't hear of this idiocy now as it's clear that the transformation that was promised never actually happened.
But for your benefit I'll give you a small sampling of it here:
https://www.goal.com/en-us/news/and...vid-de-gea-gbp48m-signing/bltb79e93709e534ead
Erik Ten Hag has explained how new signing Andre Onana will allow Manchester United to transform the way they play.
How Onana is Already Transforming Man United (technical analysis)
https://www.fourfourtwo.com/news/ho...onana-tactical-analysis-of-the-cameroonian-gk
How Manchester United will be transformed by the signing of Andre Onana - tactical analysis of the Cameroonian GK
https://www.downthewings.com/scout-report-how-can-andre-onana-transform-manchester-united/
Scout Report: How can Andre Onana transform Manchester United?
I can go on and on and on and on...but please do continue pretending that the "Onana will transform United's attack" never actually happened.
I did not respond to a post about the Spurs game.
I mean, it didn’t. If it did you could find quotes on here to back up your point yet, despite being asked multiple times, you can’t. And even going externally for opinions from randomers anywhere on the internet you still can’t find anyone making a case for Onana “transforming our attack”, never mind the batshit accusation of your previous post, that he would “improve the quality of our shots on goal”. Like I said, it’s very odd behaviour.
What people did say about Onana (which is repeated in those articles you linked) is that he’ll get us playing slightly higher up the pitch, because he’s able to have a much more advanced starting position than DDG. Which we can see has happened, as the one and only positive metric we’ve produced this season has been winning the ball back more often deep in the opposition half. This isn’t the same thing as “transforming our attack” but it is a positive influence that goes beyond what you would usually expect a goalkeeper to influence. Anyhoo. You’ve had this explained to you multiple times already, so I’ll leave you to it now.
Is the no.2 GK for Cameroon any good?
No, I mean nobody on here really cares because they're not playing for us so we focus on them less. We wouldn't sit around thinking about whether or not they should have saved either goal at the weekend.
Scraping for positives
Yeah absolutely fantastic. Made my day basically.
Bit of a slap in the face for Bayindir. Don't even trust him for one important game?
From an ESPN report dated October 2023
"United are working with Onana to help him better deal with errors when they come as well as on the technical side of his game, including stabilising his feet more quickly to help with shots aimed low and around his body. It doesn't help that he has a tendency to get stuck on his goal line when opponents are attacking, and coaches have reminded him to take up more aggressive positions to make the target smaller.
He's been brought to United. primarily, because of his ability with the ball at his feet with UEFA's technical report on the Champions League final against Manchester City noting he "displayed the passing range of a deep midfielder." After eight Premier League games last season, according to ESPN Stats and Information Group, De Gea had completed 134 of his 218 passes (61.47), while Onana has reached 205 from 271 attempts (75.65%), a sign that the Cameroon international is trying to help Ten Hag's side play in a different way."
From ManUtd .com July 2023 EtH on signing Onana
"Most important, always for a keeper, is clean sheets and he's not doing that on his own," began the manager. "Therefore, you need a very good defensive organisation, [it's] quite clear. But also the capabilities of a keeper is [about] keeping the goal clean. So this is the first criterion of a good goalkeeper.
"But, nowadays, football also demands good playing from the back, out-playing qualities, and that is a quality Andre has. You need both and you need to cover both areas. So yeah, we're happy, of course.
"I think with his physical presence and also with his personality, he is so keen on winning. He's so, so eager to win trophies and he will help the team and he will help the squad to get to higher levels."
It's probably quotes like this that lead people to think he would "transform our attack" you will obviously rubbish this even though one of them comes from EtH himself.
Virtually every other report you find about the transfer mentions his ball playing ability and how he can transform possession into an attack.
But hey you have 131K posts so you are right, and the vast majority of people in this thread are wrong.
Nope. Only you and the eejit you waded in to defend. There’s a world of difference between Onana making us better able to pass out from the back, or able to defend slightly higher up the pitch (both of which are actually happening) and his signing “transforming our attack” A difference that, for some strange reason, is the hill that he (and now you) want to die on.
I'm not dying on any hill, unlike you, even faced with a quote from EtH himself you try to spin it into something else, are you sure you are not a Tory MP?
I've only got 3 posts left today after this one, so I'll use them elsewhere, you are just a 131k post troll and not worth any more effort.
The point still makes little sense because Vicario is actually performing for Spurs. When Ramsdale was playing shite or Kepa when he joined Chelsea, people couldn't stop mentioning how poor they were so clearly people do care.No, I mean nobody on here really cares because they're not playing for us so we focus on them less. We wouldn't sit around thinking about whether or not they should have saved either goal at the weekend.
Scraping for positives
It is desperate stuff because it's like saying Ollie Watkins misses chances too as a defence for Hojlund as if the only difference between them is the exposure they get from the fanbase.
Our social media engagements skyrocket when he plays. Has to be the reason.
Erik would be better playing Bayindir against Wigan than debuting him in a high pressure game against another of the so called big 6.
Onana has generally performed for us in the league and yet every single time we concede a goal people are in the threads saying he's rubbish despite them being the time of goals that even your performing goalkeepers don't stop.
The criticisms you will find of the likes of Ramsdale and Kepa will be big errors, they're just not on the same level.
The mistakes was very specific to the idea that players like Alisson came in and never did anything wrong, guy got tackled and conceded because he was pissing around on the ball. It's not a defence of Onana as I've said. Only you are reading it that way...
The guys over at Full Time Devils also made reference to how Onana would get assists this year.
You cant get assists without decent attackers