All things considered this particular case has been handled brilliantly.
Onana is one of the worst transfers not only in United's history, but arguably in modern football. We got completely fooled by Inter's Champions League run, where his distribution looked worldclass, especially in the final against City. Looking back, it also exposed how poor our scouting was. Plenty of Ajax fans warned us about his lack of concentration and his tendency to make schoolboy mistakes. Those flaws weren't hidden or newly developed they were well documented. The scouts should have known better instead of focusing almost exclusively on his ability with the ball at his feet.
In hindsight, we probably should have moved on after his first season. His stock hadn't completely collapsed at that point, and we might still have been able to recoup £25-30 million by convincing another club that it had simply been a difficult first year in a new league. Instead, we doubled down, and his value continued to fall. More importantly, he cost us countless points, cup ties and European nights. Every goalkeeper makes mistakes, but with Onana they became a recurring theme rather than isolated incidents. Eventually, the pressure seemed to affect him even more, creating a vicious cycle where every error only led to another.
Of course, hindsight is a luxury, and perhaps the hierarchy genuinely believed he would improve. After all, plenty of players struggle in their first season before turning things around. Unfortunately, Onana did the opposite. His second season wasn't a redemption story, it simply confirmed that the first wasn't an anomaly or an adjustment period.
By the end, he was, by a considerable margin, one of the poorest goalkeepers in the Premier League history. He became a meme, and his reputation took such a hit that it's difficult to imagine any club in Europe's top leagues paying a transfer fee for him. That's how quickly his market collapsed.
Considering all that, the fact we've found a club willing not only to pay his wages in full but also to pay a loan fee is excellent business. That's probably the best outcome anyone could realistically have expected. I have little doubt he would already have been released if not for PSR. Writing off his remaining book value in one go would have been costly, so a loan that removes his wages from the payroll while generating a fee is about as good as it gets.
There's virtually no chance anyone pays a meaningful transfer fee for him now, so simply getting his wages off the books is already a win. Eventually, he'll leave on a free when his contract expires, and we can only hope Trabzonspor, or another club, is willing to keep covering his wages until then. Given where we were a year ago, that's a far better outcome than I ever expected.
Yeah, that's the only thing that went wrong under Amorim. How many games did Onana play last season again? He fecked up ETH way more.
