Let's talk 'keepers: who do we buy and why?

northernsoul74 said:
Onana stops the shots he should stop, nothing more. That coupled with the mistakes and fundamental flaw of parrying the ball to attackers mean he is just a pretty poor keeper.
Click to expand...
He's gotten the save of the month award 3 times in 2 seasons, so that's plainly not true. His overall performance level is not outstanding, but neither is it bad enough to make him a priority in a summer where we can probably afford 3 or maybe 4 senior players at most (2 of which we've already picked by all accounts). Its the mistakes that make him a potential target for replacement, and that means the gains with a new keeper are rather limited.

If having someone the same overall level as Onana but without the mistakes meant we went into next season with just Delap and Hojland up front and missed out on Gyökeres or Osimhen, would that be a good deal? Not a straightforward shout by any means.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Part of the reason his mistakes are so disastrous is that we can't score goals. An occasional goalkeeping howler is much more manageable if the team can make up for it. Just take a look at how we rank for goals scored and conceded. We're 15th in the league on goals scored and have scored 5 more than a team that is getting relegated. On goals conceded we are more middle of the pack - not much worse than the likes of City, Chelsea and Newcastle. Goalscoring is much more of a problem than conceding.

That being said, maybe it's possible to do smart business on a solid goalkeeper. But I would definitely spend the big bucks on striker and #10 first.
Click to expand...
Agree with this.

I think it’s also worth pointing out that he’s the most scrutinized keeper in the world. Who had haters before he even touched a ball for us.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Part of the reason his mistakes are so disastrous is that we can't score goals. An occasional goalkeeping howler is much more manageable if the team can make up for it. Just take a look at how we rank for goals scored and conceded. We're 15th in the league on goals scored and have scored 5 more than a team that is getting relegated. On goals conceded we are more middle of the pack - not much worse than the likes of City, Chelsea and Newcastle. Goalscoring is much more of a problem than conceding.

That being said, maybe it's possible to do smart business on a solid goalkeeper. But I would definitely spend the big bucks on striker and #10 first.
Click to expand...
The big money should be spent in the attacking third.

However when we can solve the keeper problem for a relatively small amount - it will be money well spent.
 
northernsoul74 said:
Onana stops the shots he should stop, nothing more. That coupled with the mistakes and fundamental flaw of parrying the ball to attackers mean he is just a pretty poor keeper.
Click to expand...
For the first few months of the season he was actually making quite a lot of good saves, so he does seem to have the ability. Unfortunately he's been here almost two years now and those few months were the only time he's shown that. The rest of the time he's been as you say.

The one thing I will say in his defence (if you can call it that) is that the mistakes haven't been as consistent as some people make out. There were a lot when he first joined, and then again more recently. So he's basically had one period where he's been outright good. Two periods where he's been outright bad. In between those periods he's been 'ok', where he did make the odd mistake but no more than most keepers do. If he could just eliminate those truly mistake-prone periods he'd be way down the priority list to replace, but unfortunately it's probably been too much to come back from at this stage.
 
I think we are targeting the correct positions CF, number 10 and keeper are the first positions we should improve, a good keeper brings you at least 10 points. Similarly a clinical striker is worth gold and can sometimes single handedly win games for you (RVP) for us in the last title winning team.

Lastly we do need Creativity and Cunha is perfect for the Left number 10 role, him on the left and Amad on the right will be very exciting to watch. If only we win Europa and can snatch away Gykores or Osimhen would be great window for us.
 
Fahad Jawaid said:
I think we are targeting the correct positions CF, number 10 and keeper are the first positions we should improve, a good keeper brings you at least 10 points. Similarly a clinical striker is worth gold and can sometimes single handedly win games for you (RVP) for us in the last title winning team.

Lastly we do need Creativity and Cunha is perfect for the Left number 10 role, him on the left and Amad on the right will be very exciting to watch. If only we win Europa and can snatch away Gykores or Osimhen would be great window for us.
Click to expand...

We also still need a RWB and more athleticism in midfield for me, unless we are planning to play Diallo there.
 
I also think Garcia for above his release clause for PSR purposes is probably the best move, if we could get delap/cunha/garcia for slightly above on all of them it would be a much better hit on psr for this year coming at least and potentially slow us to reinforce other areas.
 
Baneofthegame said:
We also still need a RWB and more athleticism in midfield for me, unless we are planning to play Diallo there.
Click to expand...

In an ideal world we upgrade on these positions with possibly Casemiro and Eriksen leaving we will be very short in the middle. We will only have Bruno, Ugarte and Collyer only i think, since i am assuming Maino will play in the front 3. We need one more and then can maybe promote Kone from the academy. The problem is lack of finances is a big issue for us. We do not have enough liquidity (cash) at the moment.

for RWB i think we can maybe still manage with Amas, Dorgu, Leon and Dalot and Maz and Amad sometimes can still play so maybe its not as urgent requirement.
 
quadrant said:
He's gotten the save of the month award 3 times in 2 seasons, so that's plainly not true. His overall performance level is not outstanding, but neither is it bad enough to make him a priority in a summer where we can probably afford 3 or maybe 4 senior players at most (2 of which we've already picked by all accounts). Its the mistakes that make him a potential target for replacement, and that means the gains with a new keeper are rather limited.

If having someone the same overall level as Onana but without the mistakes meant we went into next season with just Delap and Hojland up front and missed out on Gyökeres or Osimhen, would that be a good deal? Not a straightforward shout by any means.
Click to expand...
All Goalkeepers will make good saves. Sometimes they just get hit, and some of the good saves Onana makes are because he anticipates early - but that’s the cause of a lot of his errors.

He’s a complete liability, and yes he’s a priority.

Furthermore, he’s a massive issue that won’t cost that much to rectify. We aren’t missing out on a top striker for the sake of buying a £20-30m keeper.
 
Sort out the front players, score more goals, stop turning over the ball so easily and the rest of the team improves.

Onana is just not the biggest issue to resolve this summer. Spend our limited cash on where we get the biggest uplift…..goals win games.
 
Just saw on Reddit that Onana has bought a new Mansion in Manchester? Maybe I'm ignorant of how things work, but that seems unlikely if there's anychance of him moving on in the summer no?

We'd be mad to keep him as our #1 next year but it seems the most likely outcome.
 
A few making excuses for Onana. The man singlehanded took us out of the CL.
There have been many matches where United have been in control and hes inexplicably let a goal in.
We need a keeper that can do the basics well and win us points not lose us points
Oh and I agree, we need to improve the forward options as priority but if there’s any money left..
 
Fahad Jawaid said:
In an ideal world we upgrade on these positions with possibly Casemiro and Eriksen leaving we will be very short in the middle. We will only have Bruno, Ugarte and Collyer only i think, since i am assuming Maino will play in the front 3. We need one more and then can maybe promote Kone from the academy. The problem is lack of finances is a big issue for us. We do not have enough liquidity (cash) at the moment.

for RWB i think we can maybe still manage with Amas, Dorgu, Leon and Dalot and Maz and Amad sometimes can still play so maybe its not as urgent requirement.
Click to expand...

Yeah I agree RWB is probably down the list, more CM for me, after ST, CAM and GK. Ideally someone who has the right physical profile and can progress the ball next to Ugarte.
 
quadrant said:
Well if your opinion involves pretending our real world problems don't exist in order to make a point, then perhaps spare me from it in future.
Click to expand...
stop your ridiculous posturing. We need a new keeper, and the relatively small outlay will not have an impact on other areas. Got it. Perhaps try articulating an opinion.
 
OleGunnar20 said:
Just saw on Reddit that Onana has bought a new Mansion in Manchester? Maybe I'm ignorant of how things work, but that seems unlikely if there's anychance of him moving on in the summer no?

We'd be mad to keep him as our #1 next year but it seems the most likely outcome.
Click to expand...
That’s his problem, not ours.

He seems to be the only one that has a sky high opinion of himself. The reality should hit him square in the face in the summer. Often these properties just get sold/ rented from one player to another.
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
stop your ridiculous posturing. We need a new keeper, and the relatively small outlay will not have an impact on other areas. Got it. Perhaps try articulating an opinion.
Click to expand...
I agree, there are better keepers than Onana to be found for relatively little money. I saw somewhere that each placement on the PL table is worth something like £3.5m? I feel confident that the economic gain from having a better keeper would outweigh the cost by a meaningful margin.

We also need more firepower in attack, which we’re obviously working to solve based on the noise around Cunha, Delap and others. But we can do more than 1 single thing. The club seem to have made sensible prioritizations, so I don’t see what the problem is.
 
Wouldn't most PL teams' back up be an upgrade ?

When we played Forest their keeper was absolutely abysmal and I thought that has to be the end of his career. Sure enough he was gone in a few weeks and replaced by someone excellent. I don't think there are many poor keepers at the top and topish level. We just managed to find one; well two. Almost any part sensible recruit should be an upgrade.
 
OleGunnar20 said:
Just saw on Reddit that Onana has bought a new Mansion in Manchester? Maybe I'm ignorant of how things work, but that seems unlikely if there's anychance of him moving on in the summer no?

We'd be mad to keep him as our #1 next year but it seems the most likely outcome.
Click to expand...
If we go 50 50 we might be able to get a bargain.
 
I hear talk that both City and Liverpool will have new keepers next season... I wonder if it's worth a cheeky bid (I know they probably wont' sell to us. Newcastle almost certainly will get James Trafford, and Pope would be an upgrade too
 
Wing Attack Plan R said:
I would agree with that. I think the rebuild is going to be far more expensive than we are able to spend, even with sales and end of contracts.

Last season when we were flirting with players like Osimhen, his release clause was around €75m, which is £63.8m. Maybe we find two bangers for £75m each. That leaves £50m for the rest of the repairs. Even someone like Ugarte cost us £42.2m (£50.7 with add ons), and I think I'm the only person here who likes him. We need a goal machine, a goal keeper, two wingbacks, and a central midfielder.
Click to expand...
Remember we’ll be selling too. I’d go dumpster diving for a GK, not spend more than 15m. Other than Allison, has a pricey GK ever worked out? I want a shot stopper there. Awesome if they are good with the ball at their feet, but I want a GK that commands his box, is super long and twitchy. Agree on the wingbacks and CM and also a 10…

If we can sell Rashford, Sancho, Antony, Onana and maybe Garnacho, we could raise 120-150m, add an additional reported budget of 160m, and we could spend 280 or more. If we sell or loan Hojlund and Zirkzee, we could raise even more money.

I’m far less concerned about specialists that are supposedly needed for the 3-4-3. Would rather just have good, athletic/pacey, technical players and a proven striker.
 
DSG said:
Remember we’ll be selling too. I’d go dumpster diving for a GK, not spend more than 15m. Other than Allison, has a pricey GK ever worked out? I want a shot stopper there. Awesome if they are good with the ball at their feet, but I want a GK that commands his box, is super long and twitchy. Agree on the wingbacks and CM and also a 10…

If we can sell Rashford, Sancho, Antony, Onana and maybe Garnacho, we could raise 120-150m, add an additional reported budget of 160m, and we could spend 280 or more. If we sell or loan Hojlund and Zirkzee, we could raise even more money.

I’m far less concerned about specialists that are supposedly needed for the 3-4-3. Would rather just have good, athletic/pacey, technical players and a proven striker.
Click to expand...
Buffon maybe? Possibly Courtois? But I think that supports your point. You spend huge for the best in the world. Otherwise, save your money and bring in someone competent.
 
DSG said:
Remember we’ll be selling too. I’d go dumpster diving for a GK, not spend more than 15m. Other than Allison, has a pricey GK ever worked out? I want a shot stopper there. Awesome if they are good with the ball at their feet, but I want a GK that commands his box, is super long and twitchy. Agree on the wingbacks and CM and also a 10…

If we can sell Rashford, Sancho, Antony, Onana and maybe Garnacho, we could raise 120-150m, add an additional reported budget of 160m, and we could spend 280 or more. If we sell or loan Hojlund and Zirkzee, we could raise even more money.

I’m far less concerned about specialists that are supposedly needed for the 3-4-3. Would rather just have good, athletic/pacey, technical players and a proven striker.
Click to expand...
Only keepers out there available for nothing or even cheap are bringing De Gea back or Meret abs if I’m honest I wouldn’t be against either of it means no more Onana in goal for us.

As for the outgoings you need to factor in PSR and what we owe out still on Onana, Antony, Sancho, Zirkzee and Hojlund which if my maths are right is around £39 million for Onana, around £32 million for Antony, around £15 million for Sancho, around £30 million for Zirkzee and around £43 million for Hojlund so we’d need that fee for each to not make a loss PSR wise so even moving them on means nothing for us transfer budget wise.

Because of how unlikely it would be in getting those fees in for those players it would mean we’d need to get big money for Rashford just to offset those losses which would really feck us transfer budget wise especially if we didn’t win Europa.
 
davidmichael said:
Only keepers out there available for nothing or even cheap are bringing De Gea back or Meret abs if I’m honest I wouldn’t be against either of it means no more Onana in goal for us.

As for the outgoings you need to factor in PSR and what we owe out still on Onana, Antony, Sancho, Zirkzee and Hojlund which if my maths are right is around £39 million for Onana, around £32 million for Antony, around £15 million for Sancho, around £30 million for Zirkzee and around £43 million for Hojlund so we’d need that fee for each to not make a loss PSR wise so even moving them on means nothing for us transfer budget wise.

Because of how unlikely it would be in getting those fees in for those players it would mean we’d need to get big money for Rashford just to offset those losses which would really feck us transfer budget wise especially if we didn’t win Europa.
Click to expand...

Dave still has it.



The Antony goal was obviously unstoppable.
 
Raoul said:
Dave still has it.



The Antony goal was obviously unstoppable.
Click to expand...

The timeline had we kept DeGea and never signed Onana... At the bare minimum we wouldn't have gone out of the CL with our tails between our legs. Zero chance we would have won it, of course.
 
Wing Attack Plan R said:
The timeline had we kept DeGea and never signed Onana... At the bare minimum we wouldn't have gone out of the CL with our tails between our legs. Zero chance we would have won it, of course.
Click to expand...

Indeed. We could've just kept De Gea, maybe at lower wages, and saved the 50m we squandered on Onana. Another ETH special i suppose.
 
davidmichael said:
Only keepers out there available for nothing or even cheap are bringing De Gea back or Meret abs if I’m honest I wouldn’t be against either of it means no more Onana in goal for us.

As for the outgoings you need to factor in PSR and what we owe out still on Onana, Antony, Sancho, Zirkzee and Hojlund which if my maths are right is around £39 million for Onana, around £32 million for Antony, around £15 million for Sancho, around £30 million for Zirkzee and around £43 million for Hojlund so we’d need that fee for each to not make a loss PSR wise so even moving them on means nothing for us transfer budget wise.

Because of how unlikely it would be in getting those fees in for those players it would mean we’d need to get big money for Rashford just to offset those losses which would really feck us transfer budget wise especially if we didn’t win Europa.
Click to expand...
Marcin Bułka could be a very shrewd signing. Entering the final year of his contract at Nice.
 
Wing Attack Plan R said:
The timeline had we kept DeGea and never signed Onana... At the bare minimum we wouldn't have gone out of the CL with our tails between our legs. Zero chance we would have won it, of course.
Click to expand...
He pretty much single handedly cost us the Europa League win in the 2021 shootout and was awful when Sevilla knocked us out in 2023. He can't really be held up as some kind of standard bearer in Europe.
 
CM said:
He pretty much single handedly cost us the Europa League win in the 2021 shootout and was awful when Sevilla knocked us out in 2023. He can't really be held up as some kind of standard bearer in Europe.
Click to expand...
He also single-handedly lost us the FA Cup final in 2023 and nearly cost us top 4 with all the clangers he dropped that season. We needed to move on from De Gea, but our recruitment planning was so poor that we seemingly went for Onana off the back of one performance in the CL final and his prior relationship with Ten Hag.
 
Raoul said:
Indeed. We could've just kept De Gea, maybe at lower wages, and saved the 50m we squandered on Onana. Another ETH special i suppose.
Click to expand...

It was completely mental how we not only hounded De Gea out of the club, but then how we fell in love with a keeper was known (or believed) to be brilliant with his feet but not highly regarded as a shot stopper. No doubt we would have found another ingenious way to waste the 50m we wasted on Onana, but at least in theory we could have spent the 50m we wasted on Onana on an area where we needed a real improvement.
 
lex talionis said:
It was completely mental how we not only hounded De Gea out of the club, but then how we fell in love with a keeper was known (or believed) to be brilliant with his feet but not highly regarded as a shot stopper. No doubt we would have found another ingenious way to waste the 50m we wasted on Onana, but at least in theory we could have spent the 50m we wasted on Onana on an area where we needed a real improvement.
Click to expand...

100%

Imagine if we used the over £100m spent on Hojlund and Onana on better players. ETH would probably still have a job.
 
Frosty said:
Buffon maybe? Possibly Courtois? But I think that supports your point. You spend huge for the best in the world. Otherwise, save your money and bring in someone competent.
Click to expand...
Courtois only cost €35m, I think we’d all do that. Maybe try and shake Maignan loose from Milan for 25m? His contract expires in 2026. Other than that, save your money.
 
DSG said:
Courtois only cost €35m, I think we’d all do that. Maybe try and shake Maignan loose from Milan for 25m? His contract expires in 2026. Other than that, save your money.
Click to expand...
Maignan - Onana swap deal?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.