Manchester United have the completed the signing Andre Onana after weeks of negotiations, and after agreeing a £48 million ($61m) fee with his former club Inter, Erik ten Hag finally has the goalkeeper he craved. As much as the Dutchman tried to defend David de Gea throughout a season filled with clangers, there was always the sense that he was protesting too much and that he did not genuinely trust in the Spaniard.
De Gea had long been cast out from the Spain team due to his poor footballing abilities and his limitations in an aspect of the game that is getting ever more important, in addition to a marked decline in his shot-stopping ability, has led to him leaving United too.
Even though he won the Golden Glove for the most clean sheets in the Premier League last season, De Gea’s skillset was rooted in the past and he was quite clearly holding United back, preventing them from going in the new direction Ten Hag envisioned for them.
Onana, however, can lead United into the future. The Cameroonian was a big part of Ten Hag’s most successful side at Ajax and he can help the Red Devils take the next step after an excellent first season under the Dutchman.
Ice cool on the biggest stage
The FA Cup final defeat to Manchester City was almost certainly the game that convinced Ten Hag and United that they had to move on from De Gea. The Spaniard routinely gave away possession to Pep Guardiola’s side at Wembley and was too slow to get across and save Ilkay Gundogan’s winning goal.
But one week later while watching the Champions League final between City and Inter, United saw the future right in front of them. In Istanbul, Onana gave a masterclass in controlling and distributing the ball while under pressure.
Ten Hag already knew all about Onana after working with him for five years at Ajax. But now United could see that if they wanted to build on the progress that they had made under the Dutchman, then they needed to go all out and sign the Cameroonian.
Onana may have ended the night on the losing side, but he was one of the standout players in the Champions League final and was a key factor in Inter making such a contest of a match that many observers predicted would be a one-sided affair.
Ice cool on the biggest stage
The FA Cup final defeat to Manchester City was almost certainly the game that convinced Ten Hag and United that they had to move on from De Gea. The Spaniard routinely gave away possession to Pep Guardiola’s side at Wembley and was too slow to get across and save Ilkay Gundogan’s winning goal.
But one week later while watching the Champions League final between City and Inter, United saw the future right in front of them. In Istanbul, Onana gave a masterclass in controlling and distributing the ball while under pressure.
Ten Hag already knew all about Onana after working with him for five years at Ajax. But now United could see that if they wanted to build on the progress that they had made under the Dutchman, then they needed to go all out and sign the Cameroonian.
Onana may have ended the night on the losing side, but he was one of the standout players in the Champions League final and was a key factor in Inter making such a contest of a match that many observers predicted would be a one-sided affair.
Passing ability of a midfielder
Onana lived up to Guardiola’s billing. In the opening minute of the final, he could be seen dribbling outside of his area, in front of his centre-backs. A few minutes later, when Bernardo Silva ran to press him in his area, he nonchalantly chipped the ball to Federico Dimarco.
Towards the end of the first half, Onana had five City players in front of him and only one real option to hit, but he slipped the ball straight into the path of Marcelo Brozovic, making the pass with the ease of a top-class holding midfielder.
Late in the game, when Inter were desperately chasing an equaliser, many goalkeepers would have resorted to quickly punting the ball forward. But Onana remained calm and courageous, venturing way out of his area with the ball at his feet – closer to the halfway line than his area – and taking on Erling Haaland before finding Lukaku and starting a dangerous Inter attack.
Short passing under pressure is far from Onana’s only attribute, and in one moment in the second half he took out seven City players with a curling pass to start a counter-attack. Over the course of the 90 minutes, Onana put opposite number Ederson, once regarded as one of the best ball-playing goalkeepers in the world, in the shade with his passing and dribbling.
The Brazilian came to City’s rescue with some fine saves, including tipping away Robin Gosens’ shot in the final seconds of added-time. But Onana also performed well with his hands, foiling Haaland from City’s best chance of the first half. There was very little he could do about Rodri’s winning strike, too.
Key to Ten Hag’s golden era at Ajax
While European superpowers such as Bayern Munich and Real Madrid were crushed by City, Inter got mighty close to toppling Guardiola’s side, and a large part of that was the calmness and control Onana gave them in possession. But that is far from the only reason why United should be trying to sign the goalkeeper.
Onana was Ten Hag’s No.1 for the majority of his time at Ajax, and during their time together, they won won three Eredivisie titles and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League, outclassing Real Madrid and knocking out Juventus before being eliminated in agonising fashion by Tottenham.
Onana, who first came to Europe to join Barcelona and then moved to Jong Ajax, the Dutch giants’ youth side, was a key factor in Ajax’s success under Ten Hag. He would frequently start attacks by finding playmaker Frenkie de Jong, and was on hand to offer his defenders a way out of trouble whenever they came under pressure.
Onana had to miss nine months of football between 2021 and 2022 while he served a doping ban for accidentally ingesting the banned diuretic Furosemide, mistakenly thinking it was a paracetamol. But once he was free to play again Ten Hag slowly reintroduced him to the team and defended him from criticism when he first returned, calling him a “masterful goalkeeper”.
Letting United play how Ten Hag wants
Ten Hag’s Ajax played a very different style of football to his United team, and one of the key differences is that in Amsterdam the coach had Onana and in his first year in Manchester, he had De Gea.
Indeed, the coach asked De Gea to play more with his feet in the pre-season campaign, but after the shock 4-0 defeat at Brentford in the second game of the season, when the Spaniard was responsible for two of the goals, he abandoned his plans to play possession-based football and the team managed to turn their season around by largely playing pragmatic, counter-attacking football.
Ten Hag stood by De Gea and defended him publicly after his gaffe against West Ham in April and his unconvincing display in the FA Cup final. But on occasion, he admitted his concern about the Spaniard’s kicking, such as after the match against Real Betis in March, when he said he could not ignore his errors.
And after the cup final defeat to City, when asked specifically about De Gea’s ability on the ball, he said: “Say it like this, we are in the right direction. But there are occasions in the game, issues in the game we have to improve, definitely, if we want to make the next step and win trophies.”
Signing Onana is the key to United taking that next step and unlocking their true potential under Ten Hag, allowing them to replicate Ajax’s free-flowing football which conquered Madrid and Juve, and earned them admirers around the world.
Onana will also be able to link-up again with his old Ajax team-mate Lisandro Martinez, who United badly missed in the final two months of the season after he fractured his metatarsal.
A statement signing at last
United have dragged their heels over signing a new goalkeeper for years, and the truth is they did not wish to spend their summer looking for one given the other areas of the squad they need to address. The fact that it is still unclear who will own the club next year makes their transfer business even more difficult to carry out.
But goalkeeper is an area they have neglected for far too long, and in 12 years with De Gea as No.1, they have never given him a proper rival to compete with. One reason why is that they trusted him so much that in 2019 that they made him the Premier League’s highest-paid player, handing him a contract worth £375,000-per-week. Having made such a big outlay on De Gea, it made little sense to sign another quality ‘keeper to give him a run for his money.
But they have done the right thing by parting ways with De Gea, even if their withdrawal of an agreed contract was clumsy and cowardly, and prioritising the signing of Onana. They now have a top goalkeeper for the next four or five years or even longer and have mapped out their future, just as City did when they signed Ederson in 2017 and Liverpool when they landed Alisson in 2018.
Onana has all the skills a modern goalkeeper needs, and by taking Inter to the brink of winning the Champions League has proved he has the personality to succeed at the highest level.
Having allowed themselves to become complacent in their long-term search for a goalkeeper, United have finally shown ambition and leadership by signing Onana and reuniting him with the coach under whom he first showed his true potential. Now Onana can help United’s reach theirs. Source: goal.com
