André Onana | Loaned to Trabzonspor

I remember thinking De Gea was definitely poor and declining in the run up to his exit. But if we knew what was coming, do we agree that De Gea based on ability to shot stop and at least parry out of danger, would have been a much better situation all said and done?

I mean the guy lost his marbles and took a year out but unless I'm guilty of seriously revising history, De Gea was so much better and made less flailing errors than Onana.
 
Schmeichel=God said:
I remember thinking De Gea was definitely poor and declining in the run up to his exit. But if we knew what was coming, do we agree that De Gea based on ability to shot stop and at least parry out of danger, would have been a much better situation all said and done?

I mean the guy lost his marbles and took a year out but unless I'm guilty of seriously revising history, De Gea was so much better and made less flailing errors than Onana.
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Of course DDG would be a better option. Not least because he didn’t cost £47m and was replaced by the 4th most expensive keeper of all time who is actually out worst keeper in at least the PL era.

However, we did need to move on from him, just got it spectacularly wrong.
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
Of course DDG would be a better option. Not least because he didn’t cost £47m and was replaced by the 4th most expensive keeper of all time who is actually out worst keeper in at least the PL era.

However, we did need to move on from him, just got it spectacularly wrong.
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Agree. Moving on from him was absolutely the right decision but who we moved on to was a poor decision.

All that said, I’ll hold my hands up and say I was very excited by the Onana signing at the time and thought he would have a big impact on our play. Unfortunately that impact on our play ended up being shaky playing out from the back and regular spells of making at least 1 fatal error per game.
 
Schmeichel=God said:
I remember thinking De Gea was definitely poor and declining in the run up to his exit. But if we knew what was coming, do we agree that De Gea based on ability to shot stop and at least parry out of danger, would have been a much better situation all said and done?

I mean the guy lost his marbles and took a year out but unless I'm guilty of seriously revising history, De Gea was so much better and made less flailing errors than Onana.
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I said this at the time, but we effed ourselves in how we handled the keeper situation at the time. Even if hatred at De Gea was too great to ignore, Henderson was and is vastly better than Onana. We could have gotten over the infamous interview.
 
lex talionis said:
I said this at the time, but we effed ourselves in how we handled the keeper situation at the time. Even if hatred at De Gea was too great to ignore, Henderson was and is vastly better than Onana. We could have gotten over the infamous interview.
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Nah feck Henderson too. Honestly I'm more pissed about bayindir signing them onana. For that money we could've found a true up and coming option that could've pushed onana, instead of some worthless joker
 
In my opinion,

De gea was the one of the main reasons we consequently got in to the top 4.

He would save our arse and weak defence & midfield every season or atleast through half a season non stop.

He would constantly make up for the errors of the defence. He would not only save the easy shots, but he would save the shots that no other goalkeeper could save that would be going to the corners of the net.

As simple as it sounds, I remember Ugarte or Bruno Fernandes losing possession in the middle of the pitch which allowed the opposition a shot on goal that they would score. The chances that De Gea saves that is higher than any goalkeeper because for all his shortcomings he had the best reactive reflex saving ability.

The main issue with De Gea was he never came off his line which then allowed him to make acrobatic saves. This was what we needed from our new goalkeeper but at the same time we thought; you know what, let's get a goalkeeper like Ederson that can play the ball out from the back because De Gea wasn't good with the ball at his feet either. It was going for 2 birds with one stone assuming we were better than we actually are.

We moved De Gea on thinking we were ready to make the step up for that new goalkeeper and helping us be that top team again.

However, the team still allows the opposition to take too many shots against our goal which is linked to our defence and our midfield.
This coupled with us picking Onana who has nowhere near the same reflex ability as de gea allows way to many goals. You will see Onana tripping over himself on the goal line trying to reach a ball that's just a few Centimetres next to him.

De Gea never did that.

In my opinion we let go of De Gea too early.
De Gea should have stayed until the end of the July 2024 but we let him go and allowed Ten Hag to buy his own goalkeeper Onana in July 2023.
That season led us to humiliation in the CL and not qualifying to the Top 4 (which De Gea was a big reason for), but also resulted on United taking a gamble on Ten Hag doing better in 2024/25 but that didn't work and we are left with an average goalkeeper with a new manager who probably wants him replaced.

Ten Hag wasn't getting the best out of our squad for him to just cut the more experienced top 4 type players from the squad. We removed one of the main players that would help us qualify for European Competitions when we should have tested Ten Hag's managerial ability first.
 
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For the love of god can people stop with this we let De Gea go too early stuff. Onana being crap doesn't negate that it was clearly time to move De Gea on. The error was with the signing of a replacement.
 
You know your GK is shite that when everytime they make bog standard saves, you almost feel relieved - like you want to compliment them :lol:

Anyway, can we stop bumping this thread unless there is hope/an update of his sale, please? I get my hopes up everytime I see this thread on the front page :(
 
Ish said:
You know your GK is shite that when everytime they make bog standard saves, you almost feel relieved - like you want to compliment them :lol:

Anyway, can we stop bumping this thread unless there is hope/an update of his sale, please? I get my hopes up everytime I see this thread on the front page :(
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I'm not even exaggerating when I say that, that is exactly how I felt everytime I watched us last season. I was nervous everytime a half decent shot came towards him. That is the opposite of what a GK should make you feel.
 
JBG said:
I'm not even exaggerating when I say that, that is exactly how I felt everytime I watched us last season. I was nervous everytime a half decent shot came towards him. That is the opposite of what a GK should make you feel.
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Yeah, I think majority probably felt that way in fairness - and it's a damning sign, a very sure sign that he has no business being in goals.
 
Ish said:
You know your GK is shite that when everytime they make bog standard saves, you almost feel relieved - like you want to compliment them :lol:

Anyway, can we stop bumping this thread unless there is hope/an update of his sale, please? I get my hopes up everytime I see this thread on the front page :(
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I've resigned myself to the fact that we're not buying a goalkeeper this summer - which basically means we're still incompetent, and the season is a write-off
 
Annihilate Now! said:
I've resigned myself to the fact that we're not buying a goalkeeper this summer - which basically means we're still incompetent, and the season is a write-off
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I'm trying to give the powers that be (Ineos) the benefit of the doubt - I really am. Trying to fix, what is, a culmination of over a decades mismanagement and poor investment in the squad isn't easy. I also don't understand the 'inner workings' of our budget and cashflow well enough, and I know we're struggling to shift high earning deadwood - that is supposed to fund purchases.

I get they're focusing on the attack, as an example, which I also agree with but then i look at the GK position - and surely this is probably the easiest and cheapest position to 'upgrade' us in? I don't want to sound like an expert so I don't have a ton of names (outside of highly rated GK's who will cost a pretty penny!) but there must be cheap, short-term alternatives out there, who will be decent upgrades on Onana? Hell, they're being ruthless (finally) with the likes of Sancho, Rashford, Antony but surely applying the same 'standards' across the squad, the likes of Onana should be told to find himself another club as well - that's if we have 'performance standards' both on and off the field?

I know writing all this in theory sounds pretty easy....but these guys are paid a mini fortune to make these decisions. Alas, like I say, i am trying to understand it from their perspective. It was a mammoth task to do this rebuild in anything under 3-4 transfer windows and that's without considering our finances. Here's hoping we still end up bringing in a capable number 2 who can at the very least, push Onana or displace him!
 
Fr. Todd Unctious said:
For the love of god can people stop with this we let De Gea go too early stuff. Onana being crap doesn't negate that it was clearly time to move De Gea on. The error was with the signing of a replacement.
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100% this.

It was time for both club and player to go their separate ways with regards to de Gea.

Andre Onana is utter dog sh*t and should never have been signed.

Those statements are mutually exclusive; there’s no correlation between them, we just cocked up the replacement.

And Henderson wasn’t the answer either. He’s just another Ben Foster or Tim Howard; a good mid table keeper. Admittedly that’s way better than Onana, but not what we should’ve been aspiring to, and not what a £45m outlay should deliver.
 
Jay-Z Roc-A-Fellaini said:
In my opinion,

De gea was the one of the main reasons we consequently got in to the top 4.

He would save our arse and weak defence & midfield every season or atleast through half a season non stop.

He would constantly make up for the errors of the defence. He would not only save the easy shots, but he would save the shots that no other goalkeeper could save that would be going to the corners of the net.

As simple as it sounds, I remember Ugarte or Bruno Fernandes losing possession in the middle of the pitch which allowed the opposition a shot on goal that they would score. The chances that De Gea saves that is higher than any goalkeeper because for all his shortcomings he had the best reactive reflex saving ability.

The main issue with De Gea was he never came off his line which then allowed him to make acrobatic saves. This was what we needed from our new goalkeeper but at the same time we thought; you know what, let's get a goalkeeper like Ederson that can play the ball out from the back because De Gea wasn't good with the ball at his feet either. It was going for 2 birds with one stone assuming we were better than we actually are.

We moved De Gea on thinking we were ready to make the step up for that new goalkeeper and helping us be that top team again.

However, the team still allows the opposition to take too many shots against our goal which is linked to our defence and our midfield.
This coupled with us picking Onana who has nowhere near the same reflex ability as de gea allows way to many goals. You will see Onana tripping over himself on the goal line trying to reach a ball that's just a few Centimetres next to him.

De Gea never did that.

In my opinion we let go of De Gea too early.
De Gea should have stayed until the end of the July 2024 but we let him go and allowed Ten Hag to buy his own goalkeeper Onana in July 2023.
That season led us to humiliation in the CL and not qualifying to the Top 4 (which De Gea was a big reason for), but also resulted on United taking a gamble on Ten Hag doing better in 2024/25 but that didn't work and we are left with an average goalkeeper with a new manager who probably wants him replaced.

Ten Hag wasn't getting the best out of our squad for him to just cut the more experienced top 4 type players from the squad. We removed one of the main players that would help us qualify for European Competitions when we should have tested Ten Hag's managerial ability first.
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The way you describe De Gea was how he used to be up until 2018. In his last five seasons here he was not a particularly good shot-stopper at all and certainly wasn't saving the defence. Yes every now and then he'd still pull off a great save that not many would, but he was also letting in just as many (if not more) shots that he probably should have saved. He also made a hell of a lot of outright errors during that time, especially in big games.

Unfortunately Onana was the wrong choice to replace him, but he absolutely needed to be replaced.
 
MadDogg said:
The way you describe De Gea was how he used to be up until 2018. In his last five seasons here he was not a particularly good shot-stopper at all and certainly wasn't saving the defence. Yes every now and then he'd still pull off a great save that not many would, but he was also letting in just as many (if not more) shots that he probably should have saved. He also made a hell of a lot of outright errors during that time, especially in big games.

Unfortunately Onana was the wrong choice to replace him, but he absolutely needed to be replaced.
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Part of me thinks the World Cup in Russia broke him - came back a different player altogether.
 
Reds Under The Bed said:
Part of me thinks the World Cup in Russia broke him - came back a different player altogether.
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Yep, it absolutely seemed like that. He'd just come off his best ever season in 17/18, but his terrible performance in that World Cup seemed to destroy his confidence and he never looked remotely the same player again (other than a brief resurgence in the first half of 21/22, before dropping right back off again).
 
It's obvious that Onana will remain our first goalkeeper in the new season. Unfortunately.
 
MadDogg said:
Yep, it absolutely seemed like that. He'd just come off his best ever season in 17/18, but his terrible performance in that World Cup seemed to destroy his confidence and he never looked remotely the same player again (other than a brief resurgence in the first half of 21/22, before dropping right back off again).
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De Gea was terrible in his last 5 seasons for Man Utd. People tend to forget how bad he was in his latter years of his Utd career. He made so many comical mistakes and blunders, and that's why he was sold.

He should have been sold like in 2019 but we only sold him 2 years ago. Just because Onana is sheite that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have sold De Gea. I'll never forget what Roy Keane said about him back in 2020:

“I’m sick to death of this goalkeeper, I’d be fighting him at half-time. I would be swinging punches at that guy. This is a standard save for an established international goalkeeper. I am flabbergasted... De Gea, Maguire, hang your heads in shame.”
 
Hope we put signing a new GK a priority. We need to be ruthless and no nonsense approach from now on to win PL in 2028.

I'm willing to sacrifice signing a ST. Zirkzee and Hojlund (pray) may still come good with Cunha and Mbeumo. But Onana is a gone case. He has a mistake in him in every game.
 
Onana is, on the whole, nowhere near as bad as people make him out to be across a full season. His most critical weakness (bottle job in important matches) is mitigated a lot by the fact we're not in Europe this year. He's not a title winning goalkeeper, but we can spend the money much, much more effectively further up the pitch. Even if Onana had been the top performing goalkeeper in the league last year it still would have only saved us 6-8 goals. We still only scored 42 goals in 38 matches and were mid table for xG.

If we get a big offer in for him from SA, sure. Otherwise every penny we have not spent on our attack and midfield is money we're not getting proper value from. Onana can wait until next season.
 
Dion said:
Onana is, on the whole, nowhere near as bad as people make him out to be across a full season. His most critical weakness (bottle job in important matches) is mitigated a lot by the fact we're not in Europe this year. He's not a title winning goalkeeper, but we can spend the money much, much more effectively further up the pitch. Even if Onana had been the top performing goalkeeper in the league last year it still would have only saved us 6-8 goals. We still only scored 42 goals in 38 matches and were mid table for xG.

If we get a big offer in for him from SA, sure. Otherwise every penny we have not spent on our attack and midfield is money we're not getting proper value from. Onana can wait until next season.
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Couldn’t disagree more, I think he’s far worse than many realise. Certain players, particularly in certain positions, like keeper, centre half and centre mid, have multiplying effects on their teammates around them. Van der Sar and Schmeichel had it, Keane had it, as much as it stings, Van Dijk has it. They make the players around them better by virtue of the confidence they imbue.

Onana is the absolute opposite. He makes our defenders worse. They go into every game questioning whether today is the one he’s going to inexplicably chuck one into his own net. The blooper reel is comical, but imagine the effect that’s having on the players in front of him? Contrast that with van der Sar who transmitted nothing but calm assuredness.

He’s truly dreadful, and whilst I do think we’re stuck with him this season, because he is United’s number one, is hardly itching to leave, has a big, long contract and a whacking great lump of amortisation left, I hope to god we can bring in someone, anyone, that’s an upgrade on Bayindir that will be able to edge him out of the team at the first sign of him donning the clown shoes, tumble down trousers and red nose once again.
 
Fr. Todd Unctious said:
For the love of god can people stop with this we let De Gea go too early stuff. Onana being crap doesn't negate that it was clearly time to move De Gea on. The error was with the signing of a replacement.
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People seem to forget De Gea had a couple of absolutely horror seasons making huge amounts of mistakes.
 
Sandikan said:
People seem to forget De Gea had a couple of absolutely horror seasons making huge amounts of mistakes.
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If its a choice between keeping DeGea for free or spending 50m on Onana you keep DeGea.

Yes we should have signed a better keeper, but what do you do not do is spend big money on a worse one
 
UTD want £30m for him, can't see any club in Europe willing to fork out that much for a 10th rate goalie unless they haven't seen him play for the past 2 years.
 
UTD_Since_1978 said:
UTD want £30m for him, can't see any club in Europe willing to fork out that much for a 10th rate goalie unless they haven't seen him play for the past 2 years.
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They don't want to take a PSR loss so we are stuck with him for another season. At the very least they need to get a better backup goal keeper. The combination of Onana and Bayindir means we are conceding 10 - 15 points before the season even begins.
It's gonna be hard to get to 6th .
Or maybe we get lucky and one of them dramatically improves from what we've seen from them
 
IrwinwasbetterthanCarlos said:
Couldn’t disagree more, I think he’s far worse than many realise. Certain players, particularly in certain positions, like keeper, centre half and centre mid, have multiplying effects on their teammates around them. Van der Sar and Schmeichel had it, Keane had it, as much as it stings, Van Dijk has it. They make the players around them better by virtue of the confidence they imbue.

Onana is the absolute opposite. He makes our defenders worse. They go into every game questioning whether today is the one he’s going to inexplicably chuck one into his own net. The blooper reel is comical, but imagine the effect that’s having on the players in front of him? Contrast that with van der Sar who transmitted nothing but calm assuredness.

He’s truly dreadful, and whilst I do think we’re stuck with him this season, because he is United’s number one, is hardly itching to leave, has a big, long contract and a whacking great lump of amortisation left, I hope to god we can bring in someone, anyone, that’s an upgrade on Bayindir that will be able to edge him out of the team at the first sign of him donning the clown shoes, tumble down trousers and red nose once again.
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Again though, it just doesn't really matter. Our defence isn't what is costing us the most points right now. Lack of goals are.
 
FerociousCorgis said:
Nah feck Henderson too. Honestly I'm more pissed about bayindir signing them onana. For that money we could've found a true up and coming option that could've pushed onana, instead of some worthless joker
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Sorry, but Henderson is vastly superior to Onana. Hendo is no Buffon, but at least he's no buffoon. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) The right answer would have been to keep De Gea for another season, but I completely understand the frustration with De Gea's inferior footwork at a time when playing out of the back became all the rage. The pass to Eriksen was ill-advised, but the pass to Maguire should never have been a problem to deal with. He also mishandled manageable shots that resulted in goals, but I have yet to see the keeper who never made a mistake. But even so, Henderson was and is as good as any keeper who was realistically available at the time (Maignan and Costa were available I believe, but at insane prices) and given the financial condition of the club we should have stuck with either De Gea or Henderson, not getting rid of both for a keeper whose hype machine -- "his brilliant footwork will lead to goal scoring chances" -- was beyond ridiculous.

All that said, Onana did have a brilliant 3 month spell for us last season. But can he make it 4?
 
Dion said:
Again though, it just doesn't really matter. Our defence isn't what is costing us the most points right now. Lack of goals are.
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I agree, and seemingly so do the club as that’s where we seem to be spending the bulk of our funds.

Personally, I think for a modest outlay we can massively upgrade the goalkeeping department by shipping out Bayindir for a prospect or a veteran, and there’s a decent chance that prospect or veteran can become number one, even if just for a season or two.
 
IrwinwasbetterthanCarlos said:
I agree, and seemingly so do the club as that’s where we seem to be spending the bulk of our funds.

Personally, I think for a modest outlay we can massively upgrade the goalkeeping department by shipping out Bayindir for a prospect or a veteran, and there’s a decent chance that prospect or veteran can become number one, even if just for a season or two.
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I think that would be fine, if there's a buyer out there for Bayandir. That's a big if though, because this is the second club in a row he's looked like he's not cut out for top level football. At least with Onana clubs might look at his Inter form and take a gamble.
 
The part that many can't take it is that Onana doesn't even seem to have basic goalkeeping right.

1) Delayed respond in diving to save shots
2) Bad goalkeeping positioning that create angle for attacker to score
3) Parry the shot back to dangerous penalty area
4) Poor command in the air in penalty area
5) Prone to clangers. He has it in him in every important games. I swear it feels like it anyway.
6) Slowed down the build up play by walking with the ball and then make 5 yards pass
 
Yakuza_devils said:
The part that many can't take it is that Onana doesn't even seem to have basic goalkeeping right.

1) Delayed respond in diving to save shots
2) Bad goalkeeping positioning that create angle for attacker to score
3) Parry the shot back to dangerous penalty area
4) Poor command in the air in penalty area
5) Prone to clangers. He has it in him in every important games. I swear it feels like it anyway.
6) Slowed down the build up play by walking with the ball and then make 5 yards pass
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great summary. I would add that he is also a very poor thrower of the ball. He has never successfully set up a counter attack with a quick throw
 
ScholesBrain said:
great summary. I would add that he is also a very poor thrower of the ball. He has never successfully set up a counter attack with a quick throw
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I thought that we got a world class GK when I remember the first game he played for us he yelled at Maguire for a simple mistake he made. That moment, I thought he has Peter Schmeichel in him. Little did we know that he is worse than Taibi. At least Taibi didn't cost so much.
 
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