The Red Devils' shot-stopper has put a poor start to life in England behind him and is thriving despite the Old Trafford chaos
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Goalkeepers are football's number-one rule breakers. They can literally use their hands. In another world, they would be gathered up and outlawed, banished to the wastelands for eternity.
Alas, this is deemed too and for our society. On we must soldier with them in our lives. These are the mavericks of the sporting world.
Andre Onana is certainly that. Brash, bold and brave, he is the modern goalkeeper that Manchester United have needed to take them into an era of high lines and playing out from the back. As the carefree kids of social media nowadays would say, he oozes aura.
Just over a year on from his £43.8 million (€52.4m/$55.2m) move from Inter, Onana has risen up the power rankings of the Premier League's best between the sticks. The journey to this point has been far from smooth though, and any further ascension may still have to come in tough circumstances.
Follow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱AFPMassive shoes to fill
From the off, Onana had an uphill battle trying to prove his worth as a United goalkeeper. The incumbent, David de Gea, had long been established as a club legend, a worthy shot-stopper in their long line of fine No.1s down the years.
The Spaniard's exit was stark, swift and salty. De Gea was nowhere near the peak of his powers come the end of the 2022-23 season and his limited kicking ability irked Erik ten Hag, but he was still the winner of the Premier League's Golden Glove award and, at the very least, deserved respect for all he had done in over a decade of service. Instead, United are said to have yanked back a contract which had been agreed upon, and he walked away for nothing in a cloud of controversy.
The fans didn't forget De Gea, and nor did his former team-mates, who continued to spend time with him even after his exit and while he was, technically, unemployed. Onana came in not only as a new player, but someone with history breathing down his neck from day one.
AdvertisementAFPMistake-littered start
Onana started from below zero, and his first few performances somehow saw his credit tank well into the negative. The supposed upside of him succeeding De Gea was he could open the game up with his distribution, but also come swiftly off his line. In his first few pre-season outings, pictures of the Cameroonian standing on his halfway line went viral, such was the giddiness of his new supporters for an alternative experience to differentiate from the past.
Yet despite playing a huge role in the back-end of Inter's run to the 2022-23 Champions League final, Onana began life at United more in the mould of a Massimo Taibi than a Peter Schmeichel or an Edwin van der Sar. Too easily was he allowing saveable shots to fly past him, too often was he standing a foot or two in the wrong direction when they were being taken.
Making mistakes in the Premier League is bad enough, but his errors were on display for the whole of Europe during United's short-lived Champions League group-stage campaign. His most memorable and infamous gaffe came in what proved a flattering 4-3 loss at Bayern Munich, allowing a Leroy Sane strike to squirm through his arms like a goofy mini-golf obstacle.
Getty Images SportOvercoming adversity
United have been known in recent years for humiliations and capitulations which require partaking players to issue apologies via social media as the first method of relationship repair. Fortunately, Onana goes above and beyond, ever the leader and someone ready to own his mistakes.
After his horror show against Bayern, he made the decision to front up to the cameras and poignantly took ownership of the problem: "I'm the one who let the team down. The team were good, I think because of me we didn't win the game. This is the life of a goalkeeper. It was the key point. I have to learn from it, be strong, move on. I have a lot to prove. To be honest my start in Manchester is not how I want. This was probably my worst game. It's tough, it's a tough time."
This was not the first time that Onana would have to leap over a significant mental hurdle. His Ajax career was derailed by a drug ban which he claims came about after taking his wife's medicine by mistake, and he initially struggled to cement a starting place at Inter. He always came back stronger.
As his debut United season went on, Onana turned more and more into their saviour, such was their strange penchant for consistently conceding over 20 shots a game. For all his troubles, he ended the campaign with an FA Cup winners' medal.
X-Factor
Ten Hag's continued insistence that his United team simply did not have the capacity to replicate the football of his former Ajax sides was always unusual, especially considering their style of play was supposed to be one of the main factors behind his appointment.
Onana arrived on these shores with a reputation as an expert kicker and passer, yet he was instead told to pump it long on most given occasions. It doesn't take a specialist goalkeeper to be able to do that, and this made the decision to axe De Gea even odder. As 2024 has progressed, Onana has been afforded more freedom to play more intricately, and new head coach Ruben Amorim's want of his players to take greater care in possession should lead to this proficiency being leant on even further.
However, Onana's primary function remains to keep the ball out of the net, and he has vastly improved in that regard since making his United debut. Through 12 Premier League games of 2024-25, he ranks first in post-shot expected goals minus goals allowed. That's a lot of mumbo-jumbo jargon which belongs banished to the void with goalkeepers themselves, so let's explain that in layman's terms – Onana has kept out the most shots that he had no right in saving so far this season.
In Sunday's 1-1 draw at Ipswich Town to open the Amorim era, Onana came to United's rescue with two brilliant saves to deny Liam Delap, spreading himself with Schmeichel-like gravitas to deny the son of the once-great Barclaysman. Those are the kinds of stops which will get the masses to take note.