Don’t think he’ll ever be ready, he looks truly awful, even worse than Onana has been. God knows why we sold Kovar and brought in that guy.
Fairly mainstream opinion : Onana isn’t Fabrice Ondoa, or very good
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Tom Heaton will become number 1 by then as soon as he’s fit
Imagine the scenes.... he's been decent when I've seen him tbf
How quickly do United act to replace unwanted players? Martial, Jones, Mata, Lingard, Maguire, Pogba , Sancho … The list goes on an on where United managers are stuck with players they don’t want and ones who will spoil things for everyone by going public. Pep gets as many bites as he wants to get the right players and just as importantly city offload them so they aren’t poisoning the squad.
But Pep doesn’t just say “I want him , him and him”. The club has its own transfer policy and scoring system that helps the manager identify targets that will best suit his needs. Managers are of course involved in the signings but not simply in the football manager picking tye highest stat player like some fans think.
And Man City was getting the club setup in place for Pep before he even joined. One could argue some of the signings before he joined were for his arrival. United managers get dumped into a mess.
Moyes - signing fellaini , basically undermining any ambition a league winning United side might of yad
LVG - quoted as saying United regularly got their 3-4th choice targets
Jose - not backed with Pogba , signed a young Dalot and Fred to build on 2nd spot
Ole - jobs to make players “happy”. Ronaldo signing was opportunistic, not planned,
ETH - Ronaldo issue as soon as he walked in door; injury issue, sex case issues, club sale issues, player not training, club for sale.
There are other issues for each manager but these are ones off th top of my headz
ETH prob has more issues to handle in yeh any United managers and yet some think his issue is coaching the team.Any manager coming into United has to navigate issues a top manager just shouldn’t have to manage.
Pep has two teams yet whines about a few injuries, how come nobody points out so good he has it? We’d love our manger to his injury issue , never mind all of the other advantages Pep has from citys football infrastructure
Very well said. This idea that a manager must get all his first choice signings is baffling. It’s not football manager.
I think what is a more valuable skill is to know when you’ve dropped the ball and deal with it, which Pep did. Now it might be too early with Onana but time will tell and the signs right now are not good!
I'm not arguing that ETH doesn't have multiple issues to deal with. Or that Pep doesn't benefit from having the best setup on the planet behind him (115 charges notwithstanding).
I'm just saying a lot of the things that are going wrong are squarely within his remit. If the club is securing his targets and those targets are not playing well, surely that has something to do with the Manager. In the case of Onana, this is a player ETH has identified, secured, selected and adjusted your tactics to accommodate. These are all things that Managers are expected to deal with. To quote Roy Keane, "that's his job".
Postecoglou (as much as I hate to admit it) had his best player leave as soon as he walked through the door. Arteta inherited a past-it Luiz/Sokratis CB pairing to build off of and only Saka and Nelson have survived from the first starting XI he picked.
Howe, de Zerbi, Emery, Frank and even Moyes have all managed to coach their teams to have a effective style of play that suits the squad they have. For each of them, this was evident in a matter of weeks. Although United have issues, most of those Managers would love to be given the resources that ETH has.
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That LvG quote was ridiculous at the time one of his number one targets was Muller from Munich of course you're bot going to get him, if you have targets you should have gettable ones otherwise you'll never get your number one targets
Ah one example proves if all wrong?
FDJ and Kane v Hoijland and Casemero tells us how often United get first targets. Are we a super club or not ? If not then we shouldn’t be expecting anything other then challanging for top 4.
He also vetoed Kroos and had a ridiculous first season transfer soend, getting di maria, falcao, blind etc. Then also buying Schniedelin and Schweinsteiger. The cheek!
I can forgive him that pass against Galatasray but his lack of shot stopping ability is something that can't be overlooked at this level.
If only there were a very recent, very high profile game where Onana faced City that we could draw reference from…
Absolutely. Because if there's one thing his performances this season have shown us, it's that we can definitely use his performances for Inter as a reliable guide for how he'll perform this season. Definitely.
The Suziki kid now looks like one who got away.
DDG made a pretty poor start, IIRC. He was so poor in commanding his six yard box, every team we played targeted him at corners for his whole first season. He came good though, that’s for sure. Let’s hope the same happens with Onana.
DDG's start was nothing like as shambolic as this.
Onana has been lobbed from half way, passed directly to attackers several times, let trundling shots squirm under him, flapped at easy shots almost right at him, been sat down by attackers in 1v1s needlessly.... And it's only been 10 games.
People keep mentioning DDGs poor start, but I don't think it's a good comparison at all. De Gea was still a boy. And while he fecked up plenty, he also showed world class saves sprinkled between the blunders, something Onana hasn't shown at all so far. Would be hard pressed to find a 'better than average' save from him so far. It's either absolute standard stuff or a goal conceded.
It's correct to say DDG was poor for a while, but he was young and relatively inexperienced. Onana has played in Holland and Italy, so he has no excuse for a poor start. OK, a few have been deflections but he doesn't inspire confidence in the players in defence like Schmeichel did. The board are to blame for the signings which have been rushed and overpriced, again. Varane and Casemiro's decline this season is amazing, add in the freak number of injuries and it's no wonder we are struggling. We have reverted to LVG's tippy tappy sideways and backwards play and why we can't score from corners is also another mystery. No idea what the solution is other than get the club sold, clear out the board and dross and start again.
That's the Liverpool match. The Southampton match was 3-3 with the Taibi howler.
Wires corpsed thought you were on about the one he got motm
anyways I’d totally forgotten he had played more than 2
as you were
The problem with De Gea's poor start was that it was mainly due to his lack of command in his own box and inability to get to high balls - things that he never improved on after a decade. He also couldn't do anything other than lob the ball to opposition players when he was kicking and he let in a few long range howlers himself towards the end. He stood on his line, showed no bite, and cost us time and again, like a passenger the entire game.
De Gea absolutely had to go but Onana was not the answer because the same problems are still there. In his first game he thought shouting at Maguire would demonstrate his command and a couple of driven passes down the middle would make up for his inefficiencies, and now a couple of months on he's as flappy and worrying to watch as De Gea was, but without the magical ability to save the odd shot that no one else would save. I'd blame Ten Hag for being a poor Director of Football if it was his job. People keep forgetting that Pep has been most successful at the two clubs where he had Txiki helping him, and he can focus on just coaching the team.
Didn't want to say we should've kept De Gea, but I'd say it's big cause for concern that we haven't even seen glimpses of Onana's alleged qualities as a goalkeeper.
Like you said, everyone warned us that ETH is rather poor on transfers, and still we let him have free reign
Wonder if Arsenal would entertain a bid for Ramsdale
Good lord no.
Huge upgrade on Onana.
Christ where would we be in our history if players were written off in 10 games? Even more so playing in one of the poorest defences for over 30 years.....
We have seen qualities in his distribution especially first few games and made saves. Went to shit when the back for started to go the same way.
Also this narrative about keeping DDG, what about the fact we would then have to renew his 350k a week contract for another 3 years?
Welcome to Red Cafe.
He's obviously done well at other clubs and I don't believe the quality of shots you face as a keeper differs too much from league to league. I think the bizzare jumbled defences he's had protecting him cannot have helped either.
That said, I've been very unimpressed with his goalkeeping so far. He's letting in goals you'd expect an average keeper to save. So it is a worry and he doesn't strike me as someone who lacks self belief.
The comparisons with De Gea's start are a bit unhelpful. He was 20 years old, which was incredibly unusual for a big club at the time, and had just left home for the first time. Onana is considerably more seasoned.
Let's see, you have to give him a season at least.
Arsenal has Ramsdale and Raya. West Ham has Areola and Fabianski. City has Ederson and Ortega.
United then decided to one up their rivals by offloading DDG, Henderson AND Kovar, and plugging the hole with Onana and Bayindir. If that doesn’t sound like depressing piece of business…
United then decided to one up their rivals by offloading DDG, Henderson AND Kovar, and plugging the hole with Onana and Bayindir. If that doesn’t sound like depressing piece of business…
No he didn't - he ended up getting dropped for Lindegaard.
The turning point for DDG was the save against Chelsea in 2012 and until that moment he had been decidedly average and was targeted many times.
Now I am not saying Onana is going to come good, time isn't on his side as it was for ol' Dave BUT I am adamant we are not seeing the best that Onana has to offer.
These things aren't mutually exclusive. He had some really fine saves and some terrible blunders that saw him benched eventually. Here's the first 11/12 highlight video YouTube served up, can you imagine how many of those the current Onana would've shipped?
If you’re going to use the managers name 5 times in one post at least learn how to spell it.
Yet still not good enough. There’s a better player than what we’re seeing in Onana. Whether that player is good enough to be our GK long term is another question but Ramsdale isn’t the answer either.
I’m not going to claim to have been a big watcher of Onana before he came but a number of the highlights videos highlighted his goalkeeping deficiencies. Whilst he’s let some opportunities in you wouldn’t expect in non-League [see yesterday] I think they’ll be some upturn eventually.
it
You need to rewatch again. It's well within his reach, which he decided to palm it, and missed the center of the ball. Watch Peter Schmeichel pick apart the technical side of Onana diving technique. Nobody in their right mind would defend this kind of error. Look at the reaction of our players, too. They're surprised and bemused at how such tame shot from this angle could result in a goal. This is not even acceptable for lower league standard, let alone supposed best league in the world.
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Kepa was not that good even at Bilbao. Even when his confidence restored, it doesn't make a good case when Chelsea offloaded him, getting another GK for long term.
When Onana got suspended then left out of the team when he refused to sign the new contract, even the Dutch league couldn' trouble their second choice GK that much. There is much less margin for error when it comes to PL, the most competitive league at the moment.
Think we’ll have to start calling his limp-wristed mistakes Onanisms
I think he is overweight. Should work on it.
He's making very basic errors, the goal Saturday was sunday league level keeping. I'd like to think as a top level professional it's just a loss of form and he can regain his confidence. Such technically simple goals can't keep being conceded.
Along with Kim Min Jae as a centre back.
I had serious doubts about Onana and I am not seeing anything to convince me otherwise. I do not think he has adjusted to the pace of opposing attackers, and being a ball playing goal keeper, that is essential. If he does adjust, that could be an area we see improvement in terms of timing and concentration.
The problem is we have seen one the greatest shot stoppers in goal for the past decade, although he made serious errors, you can't replace him with a poor shot stopper and "say oh well he is not bad with his footwork". You need to go out and find someone who can do both.
I would be surprised to see Onana here in 2-3 seasons time.