Onana has not worked out. We need a new keeper.

[The Hilton]

Playing out of the back is overrated. Vastly overrated. You clearly want to see your defenders be able to handle pressure but consistently trying to break pressures with short passing out of the back invites too much danger and easy chances for the opposition, with little gain in return. Onana's footwork is superior to Dave's but we don't have the back line or the midfielders to capitalize on the perceived benefits of having a keeper who can hit short passes quickly. Many timbers have fallen to make us easy prey for clubs like Palace, but one of them was the downgrade in the keeper, the current keeper being poor at shot-stopping, which under every paradigm of goalkeeping is a crucial attribute to be successful as a keeper.

As for Dave's contract situation, you left out a key fact -- United withdrew the offer it made to Dave once he accepted it. Even if we concede Dave was awful on the ball, that's no excuse for treating him awfully, like trash.

We withdrew the original offer, which would still have made him the best paid goalkeeper in the country. It was an absurd decision to offer that to a keeper who was way passed his best, and was holding us back.

Don't get me wrong, I think it was poor form to treat DDG that way, but that original contract offer was another example in a decade of us setting money on fire by holding on to players that should have been sold back when they still had some value.

 

[Plant0x84]

I think those suggesting we moved on from De Gea and gave Henderson a shot are worse than those suggesting we bring back De Gea.
For clarity, I wouldn’t do/have done either to be honest. Although I also wouldn’t have signed Onana on the back of one amazing game, even if it was the champions league final.

 

[The Hilton]

Again I hark back to old teams here to make my point, Liverpool of the 80s dominated their matches and didn’t have a sweeper keeper to do so, nor a target man up front.

there’s more than 1 way to skin a cat. I think we over compensate on the ball playing. Personally, I’d rather have a keeper with good basics nailed down, shot stopping, arial prowess, command of their box

You didn't need a sweeper back then as the back pass rule didn't exist, a keeper doesn't need to be good with their feet if they can pick up and throw the ball.

If we want to become a team that can dominate the ball, we need everyone to be comfortable in possession, which includes the goalkeeper. That doesn't mean they don't need the basics nailed down too, it isn't an either/or situation, we need a goalkeeper who's good at goalkeeping as well as comfortable on the ball.

 

[JB7]

The way we discarded our legend for Onana makes me sad, ETH is an absolute worst talent spotter in the world.

Ah, yes, the "worst talent spotter in the world" for replacing De Gea with Onana. The De Gea pining is completely bat-shit crazy.

If we put Onana up for sale in the summer, there would be takers queuing to pay £25-30m for him easily. De Gea's been available on a free transfer for coming up 18 months now and he's having to train at fecking Altrincham.

But I'm sure everyone on the Caf knows better than literally all of the paid professional "talent spotters in the world", none of whom have wanted De Gea (with the apparent exception of Nottingham Forest who have basically attempted to stay up by signing every player ever).

 

[Rozay]

This is what happens when YouTube and Twitter nerds convince you that goalkeepers should wear #10 instead of #1. So many goals he’s conceded this season which haven’t been ‘GK errors’ I’ve watched thinking ‘De Gea saves that all day’.

 

[Plant0x84]

Palms the ball away so much he ends up giving the ball back to the opposition. Leads to corners and more shots. Lets balls go underneath him which seems like bad keeping. Positioning seems not very elite. Decent shot stopper though. Get rid.

He definitely isn’t. He has a knack of making routine saves look amazing with his athleticism, but it’s really not hard to beat him, his reactions are slow, he dives in slow mo and gives up on shots before they’ve even passed him.

 

[JB7]

You didn't need a sweeper back then as the back pass rule didn't exist, a keeper doesn't need to be good with their feet if they can pick up and throw the ball.

If we want to become a team that can dominate the ball, we need everyone to be comfortable in possession, which includes the goalkeeper. That doesn't mean they don't need the basics nailed down too, it isn't an either/or situation, we need a goalkeeper who's good at goalkeeping as well as comfortable on the ball.

It's also a weird comparison to use Liverpool given that Grobbelaar was a goalkeeper who regularly came out of his goal far more than 99% of goalkeepers of the time.

 

[11101]

This is what happens when YouTube and Twitter nerds convince you that goalkeepers should wear #10 instead of #1. So many goals he’s conceded this season which haven’t been ‘GK errors’ I’ve watched thinking ‘De Gea saves that all day’.

De Gea was letting howlers in on a near weekly basis by the end of his time here. People are forgetting the world class keeper we once had was long gone by the end of last season.

 

[JB7]

This is what happens when YouTube and Twitter nerds convince you that goalkeepers should wear #10 instead of #1. So many goals he’s conceded this season which haven’t been ‘GK errors’ I’ve watched thinking ‘De Gea saves that all day’.

De Gea was a master of making ridiculous saves but then letting in shots you'd expect a supposedly world class goalkeeper to routinely stop, that weren't quite 'GK errors'. Particularly over the last 3/4 years he was at the club. He gets better and better in peoples heads the longer it goes since he's played a game of football.

 

[USREDEVIL]

He definitely isn’t. He has a knack of making routine saves look amazing with his athleticism, but it’s really not hard to beat him, his reactions are slow, he dives in slow mo and gives up on shots before they’ve even passed him.

Yeaj that’s kind of true- his bad positioning does that. But he hs made some real good saves tbf but way too many mistakes.

 

[Rozay]

De Gea was letting howlers in on a near weekly basis by the end of his time here. People are forgetting the world class keeper we once had was long gone by the end of last season.

The post mentioned De Gea, but was about Onana, not him. The point is, we moved away from prioritising saving the ball with passing the ball.

De Gea let cheap goals in towards the end as howlers. As I pointed out, Onana simply lets too many saveable shots in that are not even mistakes. He’s just poor at shot stopping. We’re mot talking about him dropping the ball, or it squirming under him. Just shots that aren’t particularly hard or placed in the corner that he makes an effort to save but can’t. De Gea, even at the end, was NEVER that guy. Unless he was making a clear clanger, he was saving anything that was not exceptionally struck.

Whether or not De Gea had to go is one thing, but he had to go because he was making too many mistakes, not because he was not making enough assists. Our priority in replacing him should have been saving the ball. Some people had it in their heads that he needed to go because he lacked creativity or something.

 

[Snow]

He really isnt, the fact he has more clean sheets than Allisson despite having o defence or midfield in front off him proves that as do some of his other stats.

De Gea had the most clean sheets last seasons.

 

[Dion]

You can't look at individual mistakes when a goalkeeper faces 200 shots in a season. Over that sample size you will find outliers in both directions.

The only way to judge his shot stopping is by looking at the overall picture. By most measurements he's upper quartile to upper half in terms of PL shot stoppers, which is about what we expected isn't it?

 

[RuudTom83]

Nah! Onana is facing more shots than any other keeper in Europe.

It’s stupid to even make a conclusion on him until a few CB’s can stay fit for 90 mins.

 

[Kostov]

Onana's kicking is clearly much better than DDGs, it's his goalkeeping hasn't been good enough in his season here.

I agree that the DDG situation wasn't handled well by the club (the original contract offer should never have happened), but what you're suggesting was never an option. DDG's original offer was over £200k per week for a longer period, he refused a lower offer for a shorter period. You can prefer an imaginary scenario, but it was never an option. We either kept DDG around for at least a few years as the highest paid goalkeeper in the country, or we brought someone else in, those were the options available to us so to me it's fairly clear that the latter was the correct one. Whether the replacement was the right one is a separate debate (which isn't much of a debate at the moment, admittedly), but it was great to see us start moving on from overpaid long standing players.

Onana’s kicking has been absolute crap whenever he has to resort to anything further than his first line of defence.

Not sure where you get your info with such certainty but it was reported that drastically reduced wages were agreed and then the club offered even lower wages.

Yeah great of the club to splash 50m on a worse GK while doubling his Inter wages to 120k a week, a very sound financial decision that was. We will be paying wages to Onana until 2028. .

 

[The Hilton]

Onana’s kicking has been absolute crap whenever he has to resort to anything further than his first line of defence.

Not sure where you get your info with such certainty but it was reported that drastically reduced wages were agreed and then the club offered even lower wages.

Yeah great of the club to splash 50m on a worse GK while doubling his Inter wages to 120k a week, a very sound financial decision that was. We will be paying wages to Onana until 2028. .

Drastically reduced wages yes, but that would still make him the highest paid goalkeeper in the country. It's just that he was on such an absurd salary to begin with that even the drastic reduction was such a large amount. That offer was rescinded, and then the club offered a lower salary which DDG rejected. The reports were generally all very clear on this, here are a couple of reports from a quick search: one, two. So to be absolutely clear about this, our only option for keeping DDG was on a long term contract with him as the best paid goalkeeper in the country, as we offered him a more reasonable deal and he rejected it. It was that, or lose him and bring in a new keeper.

Your final paragraph is a fallacy. You're trying to combine 2 separate decisions into one, making the first one seem bad because the second one has gone badly. Just because his replacement hasn't been good enough, that doesn't mean the decision to get rid of an underperforming player on an inflated contract is a bad one.

 

[Nytram Shakes]

I think those suggesting we moved on from De Gea and gave Henderson a shot are worse than those suggesting we bring back De Gea.
For clarity, I wouldn’t do/have done either to be honest. Although I also wouldn’t have signed Onana on the back of one amazing game, even if it was the champions league final.

Why are we worse? I always thought last summer we didnt have piles of cash, we had a lot of holes to fill, it was clear Ten Hag wanted a keeper who would come of his line which Henderson does. So made sense to give Henderson a shot.

I do get the argument that maybe he had been leaking stories, but that didn't stop when he left. And if we where going to get rid of players at united for having a bad attitude well we wouldn't have had any players for the last decade.

 

[NewGlory]

Onana being horrible, Casemiro spiraling to zero, Rashford being horrible, and Licha missing entire season - these four things are 80% responsible for our horrible season. There are many other reasons but these four things were the devastating blow. If Casemiro were same level as last year, Licha was available most of the season and we kept De Gea, I am 99% certain we would be 4th now, and if Rashford were firing from all cylinders maybe even 3rd

 

[Beans]

So only 9-10 new world class starters needed.

 

[Beans]

Onana being horrible, Casemiro spiraling to zero, Rashford being horrible, and Licha missing entire season - these four things are 80% responsible for our horrible season. There are many other reasons but these four things were the devastating blow. If Casemiro were same level as last year, Licha was available most of the season and we kept De Gea, I am 99% certain we would be 4th now, and if Rashford were firing from all cylinders maybe even 3rd

Never buy an old player from Real, their data surely told them he was on his last top season.

Varane too.

 

[NewGlory]

Never buy an old player from Real, their data surely told them he was on his last top season.

Varane too.

Agree about Casemiro. It was a desperation buy.

As for Varane, he is certainly injury-prone, but isn't it ironic that he is actually younger than Maguire? Not really "old"

 

[MrEleson]

Never buy an old player from Real, their data surely told them he was on his last top season.

Varane too.

Varane was 28 when he joined tbf. That’s hardly old especially for a defender.

However, it was obvious he wasn’t going to be the signing we thought he’d be when absolutely no Madrid fan I kew gave a damn that he left. He was already being outperformed by Militao in his final season at the club.

 

[The Bloody-Nine]

Nah! Onana is facing more shots than any other keeper in Europe.

It’s stupid to even make a conclusion on him until a few CB’s can stay fit for 90 mins.

You think we need to see LESS of him in action in order to draw a conclusion on him? Interesting.

 

[Malons]

Disagree with the sentiment he hasn't worked out. Look at the number of chances we're giving teams. Peak Schmeichel would have seemed dodgy. His footwork is excellent.

 

[devilish]

When we signed Onana I warned everyone that he's a totally different keeper to DDG. That means that there will be things that he'll excel as opposed to De Gea but things that will make him look weaker as well. I can't blame Onana for what's happening at the moment. Any GK would struggle without a defense and a DM protecting him

 

[erikcred]

Disagree with the sentiment he hasn't worked out. Look at the number of chances we're giving teams. Peak Schmeichel would have seemed dodgy. His footwork is excellent.

What does this mean? When he's walking onto the pitch?

 

[erikcred]

Never buy an old player from Real, their data surely told them he was on his last top season.

Varane too.

Let's not buy any player from Real for the next few years.

 

[RoyH1]

What does this mean? When he's walking onto the pitch?

Spot on. The level of mental gymnastics I’m seeing in this thread is hilarious. The way some in this fanbase keep on finding excuses for bad performances is part of the reason we’re so bad. We encourage mediocrity.

 

[golden_blunder]

You didn't need a sweeper back then as the back pass rule didn't exist, a keeper doesn't need to be good with their feet if they can pick up and throw the ball.

If we want to become a team that can dominate the ball, we need everyone to be comfortable in possession, which includes the goalkeeper. That doesn't mean they don't need the basics nailed down too, it isn't an either/or situation, we need a goalkeeper who's good at goalkeeping as well as comfortable on the ball.

My example also rings true when the rule changed. Liverpool did not play with a target man and still dominated matches.
There is more than one way to play

 

[Wibble]

Hard to keep clean sheets when we invite so many shots. That said Onana doesn't look like the real deal especially given the huge fee we paid. He saves quite a few but lets in lots that a really good stopper would save.

 

[Rojofiam]

Onana is the 3rd most expensive GK in history. One of us has no clue what he is talking about, here’s a hint, it’s not me.

You didn't understand. I am asking if Mount and Antony were also a bargain.

He's the 4th* most expensive GK ever, and even if I wouldn't go as far as to say he was a bargain, it was a reasonable fee for 43 million and it's probably what his real worth it. We certainly didn't overpay like we did with Antony. Same thing goes for Mount. No midfielder at the age of 24 with his ability and achievements in football will go for less than 55 million.

 

[arnie_ni]

Said this back in September. Nothings changed.

We should have just played Kovar or gone for Raya.

Many of us were saying it before onana was even bought. People thought it was ddg holding us back fromm playing good footy. He wasn't helping but it was the outielfders that need upgrading first.

 

[arnie_ni]

Disagree with the sentiment he hasn't worked out. Look at the number of chances we're giving teams. Peak Schmeichel would have seemed dodgy. His footwork is excellent.

His foot work is non existent

 

[Djemba-Djemba]

Disagree with the sentiment he hasn't worked out. Look at the number of chances we're giving teams. Peak Schmeichel would have seemed dodgy. His footwork is excellent.

His footwork is particularly terrible!

He's constantly rooted to the spot and doesn't even attempt to make saves.

 

[RedRocket9908]

doesn't even attempt to make saves.

He has made more saves than every other goalkeeper in the league this seaon other than Luton's keeper who has made one more.

Most Premier League Saves 2023/24

1. Thomas Kaminski 138

2. André Onana 137

3. Alphonse Areola 129

4. Bernd Leno125

5. José Sá 123

 

[Dannn411]

We need to go and get Kovar back from Leverkusen. He's a Courtois regen.

 

[Djemba-Djemba]

He has made more saves than every other goalkeeper in the league this seaon other than Luton's keeper who has made one more.

Most Premier League Saves 2023/24

1. Thomas Kaminski 138

2. André Onana 137

3. Alphonse Areola 129

4. Bernd Leno125

5. José Sá 123

I'm not denying he faces tons and tons of shots. We're a mess.

I'm saying his footwork is shite and he's often rooted to the spot. Also that he's clearly nowhere near good enough.

 

[The Boy]

Playing out of the back is overrated. Vastly overrated. You clearly want to see your defenders be able to handle pressure but consistently trying to break pressures with short passing out of the back invites too much danger and easy chances for the opposition, with little gain in return.

I disagree with this, playing out from the back should utilise the speed and creativity of players like Rashford, Bruno, Hojlund, Amad etc. The whole idea is to invite the opposition onto you and bring them forward so you can then break into the space they leave behind. Your problem isn't Onana in this it's sloppy passes from the defence and the worry that they won't move it fast enough to utilise that space and then get the ball nicked in a dangerous position. This is where you have missed Martinez so much as he is great at retaining the ball and passing through the lines, Maguire is pretty good at that as well, but is more prone to have the ball taken from him.

But the tactic of playing out from the back makes a lot of sense with your forward line.

 

[The Hilton]

My example also rings true when the rule changed. Liverpool did not play with a target man and still dominated matches.
There is more than one way to play

What argument is your example backing up though? That because Liverpool's tactics worked in the 80s they'll work today? Football moves on, otherwise that approach would still be dominating.

There is more than one way to play, but when one way is the approach taken by the vast majority of teams that have any success at the moment, then in order to share in that success we need to get with the program.

 

[Juicy Juiced]

Inter improved on Onana for 4 milions.
Just go watch Onana mistakes, he is full of them every season. He was just babling about ball playing keeper to sound smart, but ignored all Onana wakneses. What is worse he was his player, same as adopted Brazilian and others and still signed him up.

And DDG never was this bad, a lot of you bought in Hags bullshit. He was also ready to lower his wages and to be a deputy to younger keeper. DDG and Kovar and we would be in much better place without spending 50m.