In the summer of this year, Manchester United for 50 million euros signed the 27-year-old Inter goalkeeper Andre Onan, who was called to replace the perennial symbol of the team David de Gea in the goal of the Red Devils, who went to seek happiness elsewhere, but so far did not succeed in finding a new club. The Spanish goalkeeper has been a kind of synonym for reliability at Old Trafford for many years, but in recent seasons, something has changed in his performances, as if broken, and without the possibility of recovery. That is why Manchester United finally decided to go in search of a new goalkeeper.
Andre Onana found himself in the focus of attention of fans, journalists and critics from the very first days of his stay at Manchester United. It is not every day in European football that such money is paid for a goalkeeper, and the role of David de Gea’s successor added interest to the Cameroonian. Old Trafford experienced something similar a few decades ago, when the unsurpassed Peter Schmeichel left the team, after which some chaos reigned in the “framework” of the undisputed giant of English football of those years, although more than well-known characters such as Fabien Barthez managed to play there .
The start of the Manchester period of Onan’s career was also very difficult. Fatal mistakes in key moments of important matches led to a flurry of criticism against the African, but unwavering support for his goalkeeper was given not only by the head coach of “Manchester United”, Eric ten Haag, but also by his teammates, who perfectly understood that on the move to replace such a block as David de Gea will not be easy even for the most top goalkeeper.
And at a certain point, such tactics began to work. Manchester United have finally started to pick up points in the recent rounds of the English Premier League, with Andre Onana making no serious mistakes, showing his usual excellent quality with the ball at his feet and making some top-notch saves in key situations.
It is not surprising that according to the Wyscout index, Onana is currently the best goalkeeper of the 2023/24 season in the English Premier League. Moreover, the African is on the fifth line in terms of the number of saves made in the tournament (50), and is also on the first line in the rating of his colleagues according to such an indicator as goals that were prevented. Onan has 4.59 of them.
However, after the match of the fifth round of the group stage of the Champions League against Galatasaray (3:3), which took place in mid-century and was extremely important for Manchester United from the point of view of continuing the fight for a ticket to the playoffs of the tournament, the position Onana again shook seriously. The Cameroonian goalkeeper, one might say, single-handedly neutralized all the attacking efforts of his team, having missed at least two absolutely incomprehensible goals from Hakim Ziyesh. The ex-defender of “Liverpool” and now popular British expert Jamie Carragher even managed to properly “walk” on Onan for the Istanbul failure, saying that the African goalkeeper turns victories into draws, and draws into defeats.
But Erik ten Hag, after missing out on what is likely to be a key win for his side in the current Champions League draw, has once again backed his goalkeeper. The Dutch specialist stated that the first two goals of “Galatasaray” were not the result of Onan’s dilettantish actions, but the genius of Ziyech, and also emphasized that the whole team should take responsibility for the result: “Onan is fine. Currently, it is not about individual football players. Individual mistakes in football can matter and you have to take responsibility for them, but it’s always about the team.”
But no matter what ten Haag said, the events on the field of the Istanbul stadium demonstrated how the entire Manchester United team reacted to such an unfortunate result for themselves and Onan’s role in it. If after the mistakes in the matches against Bayern and Copenhagen, teammates always came up and tried to support Andre, who looked completely depressed, but in Istanbul there was not a single player who wanted to put his shoulder to the guilty goalkeeper. He was forced, being in absolute solitude, to first demonstratively throw his gloves on the ground, and then nervously grab his head and shout something into the air.
And this moment is much more revealing than any words said to the fans through the communication of football players and coaches with the mass media. In Istanbul, Manchester United were desperate to make amends in the eyes of their own fans not only for their 2-3 home defeat against Galatasaray at the start of October, but also for the Red Devils’ entire campaign in the Champions League this season. Leading with a score of 2:0, the Manchester players absolutely controlled the course of the match, but then began to make Onan miserable.
The author of the double in the ranks of “Galatasaray”, Hakim Ziyesh, despite the assurances of Erik ten Haag, did not show anything remarkable in both cases when performing free kicks. The Moroccan’s first shot came through the “wall”, but directly in the center of the goal – where Onana should have been, but the goalkeeper twitched to the left, trying to predict the direction of the ball’s flight and allowed the Galatasaray winger to make himself a laughing stock.
Ziyech’s second goal again came at a critical moment of the game for the Istanbul team. Then “Manchester United” won with a score of 3:1, and if it were not for Hakim’s goal, it is unlikely that Galatasaray players would have found the morale and confidence to go forward and even the score at the end. However, when Ziyesh approached the ball, he nodded affirmatively to some remark from his partner – they say, I perfectly understand how uncertain Onan is in his abilities today, and for this reason, I will shoot at the goal from a practically hopeless position, and not give a pass or canopy on partners in the penalty area. And the Moroccan was lucky again, but Andre Onana personally buried the hopes of his partners for a full three points in Istanbul…