[Sarni]

If he goes to afcon and the backup plays well the fans will want him to stay as 1st choice.

He has to back his GK we don't have a solid 2 like arsenal - he needs to get it together or he's going to get eth axed and the next guy will ship him day 1.

That will never happen though. One thing you cannot accuse ETH of is being disloyal to his Ajax players, Onana is here to stay and will be first choice even if Altay performs amazingly during his AFCON absence. He would never hurt his guys, Onana has nothing to worry about.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

That’s his reaction time. Everyone’s reaction time is different.

Then its a disgrace

 

[jem]

That will never happen though. One thing you cannot accuse ETH of is being disloyal to his Ajax players, Onana is here to stay and will be first choice even if Altay performs amazingly during his AFCON absence. He would never hurt his guys, Onana has nothing to worry about.

If that were true, would DVB be starting regularly?

 

[frostbite]

If that were true, would DVB be starting regularly?

ETH didn't buy DVB.

 

[jem]

ETH didn't buy DVB.

So you’re basically using Antony and Martinez as your barometer, the latter of whom has completely justified his manager’s faith (and even then, was given some bench time earlier this year after the World Cup.)

 

[Dr. StrangeHate]

The more I think about it, the more it seems to be a technique issue with him rather than a pressure issue considering his CL performances in the past. How was his technique issue not exposed before and how did our scouts not pick it out is the more important question?

 

[frostbite]

So you’re basically using Antony and Martinez as your barometer, the latter of whom has completely justified his manager’s faith (and even then, was given some bench time earlier this year after the World Cup.)

Antony and Wout. Both useless.

 

[Member 117152]

This guy is a fraud. I am sorry, but there is no other way of putting it.

Honestly we should have just bought the Japnese guy, Altay, extend DDG for a year and call it a day.

De Gea last season was worse than Onana this season statistically so I think you maybe need to wake up and understand he had a couple of bad games in one tournament.

Onana saved our skin countless times in the past 6 matches before it. He’s actually one of the stronger parts of our first 11 when you look at his league form on average.

Shot stopping he’s normally very good and is one of the reasons we still might make champions league next season.

 

[Member 117152]

A

It riles me up so much to see the gk dive down and try to use his hands for a low hard shot. Just use your damn feet. DDG was pretty good at it, seemed to consistently produce a good rebound out of any immediate danger with the way he used his sole whenever he could.

De Gea wasn’t great at saving shots usually though apart from his absolute peak at United. Good blocking with his feet but got beat at his near post so many times. Couldn’t play out or claim crosses.

He conceded 70 goals in 21 games against Man City alone which shows it’s a bit of a myth he was this unstoppable keeper and actually rather average for most of his United career apart from a few stellar seasons.

 

[Jund]

De Gea last season was worse than Onana this season statistically so I think you maybe need to wake up and understand he had a couple of bad games in one tournament.

Onana saved our skin countless times in the past 6 matches before it. He’s actually one of the stronger parts of our first 11 when you look at his league form on average.

Shot stopping he’s normally very good and is one of the reasons we still might make champions league next season.

Let's see at the end of the season. He can also cost us CL qualification with a couple of bad games as you put it.

 

[NicolaSacco]

The more I think about it, the more it seems to be a technique issue with him rather than a pressure issue considering his CL performances in the past. How was his technique issue not exposed before and how did our scouts not pick it out is the more important question?

The weirdness when defending those low free kicks is more about hesitancy (which is usually a by-product of pressure, rather than technique,, don’t you think?)

But his general saving also leaves a lot to be desired much of the time.

I have a horrible feeling Utd will spend the next 2 or 3 seasons flip-flopping round the inevitable decision to not renew, whilst trying to maintain asset value. IMHO I think the biggest statement Ratcliffe could/should make is to immediately bench the guy and let it be known he’s available for transfer

 

[Mwooyo]

I honestly think people are misunderstanding this Onana thing. Yes, Onana sold us out for all 3 goals yesterday. Hell, he has conceded shady goals in the CL right from the Bayern game. However, we are ignoring a more serious thing. We are conceding a lot of shots in the box...alottt!!. It doesn't matter which keeper we have, as long as we continue conceding the number of shots we currently conceding, we will not win the big matches. Even if we had prime Neur, (we would beat Galatasaray for sure) we would still get beaten by Mancity, Real Madrid, Bayern Arsenal, etc, just because we give away a lot of shots and these teams have players who take higher quality shots.

To fix manutd, we need to fix this high number of shots thingy and the root problem lies in....wait for it...the midfield. We are conceding a lot of shots because we DON'T control games. We don't control games because we don't have midfielders who keep the ball. We have midfielders who force the ball and are too direct. Bruno is top of that list...behind Bruno, we have Mctominay. When we didn't have Mctominay, we had Casemiro who is also too direct. People don't want to hear it but Bruno is the number 1 reason we struggle to control games. He gives the ball away a lot and even worse, he gives them away in central areas. Ball turnovers in central areas are catastrophic. Wingers out wide can lose the ball, but having your midfielders do this is criminal

There is NO way you will control a game if you keep giving the ball away a few moments after winning it. We DO NOT control games...that's why we concede so many shots. The Galatasaray game was soo back and forth, and so was the Everton game or the Luton game, etc. You win titles nowadays by controlling games. You CAN'T win titles with this ping pong football we are playing. Hate it or love it, we would control the game better with Amrabat, Mainoo, and Mount. The moment we add Bruno, we will have more chances created but we will lose control. We make the Bruno problem worse when we add Mctominay or Casemiro into the mix, all of a sudden, 2 out of our 3 midfielders treat the ball like it's a bomb. It's therefore no surprise that our games are back and forth...and every single DM we have played is struggling. Amrabat is a good player, but playing him in that midfield alone where he has massive spaces to cover is suicidal. Even Mainoo can not cover that space. We need to ditch Mctominay immediately and if we are serious, Bruno would also be dropped. Unless we start controlling games, it doesn't really matter who is in our Goal,
we will not win the prem or the CL

 

[Marcus]

The time is right to drop him. Give him a chance to rebuild out of the spotlight and let our reserve keepers have a run before he goes off to play for his country.

 

[ZainCRse7en]

At this moment I am not sure who is the worse keeper - Onana or Ramsdale

Both are known to be good with their feet but absolutely fail at basic shot stopping and positioning for a GK.

 

[Juice Juiced]

It's sad how people shit on DDG, one of our best keeper ever, beacuse of the new shiny toy and fairy tales from manager how modern keeper is our last puzzle.

Was he bad last seasson, yes. And yet he still won Golden Glove. At his peak he was mint for us. How people talk about him it's like he was on Tim Howard level.
And people laugh at him because he is FA. Man probably got burned out, he played 15-16 y at top level (AM, Spain, United) and he just got baby.

Onana in 4 months already cost us CL money and probably money from sponsors. And will cost us even more down the line.

 

[Matt Varnish]

I honestly think people are misunderstanding this Onana thing. Yes, Onana sold us out for all 3 goals yesterday. Hell, he has conceded shady goals in the CL right from the Bayern game. However, we are ignoring a more serious thing. We are conceding a lot of shots in the box...alottt!!. It doesn't matter which keeper we have, as long as we continue conceding the number of shots we currently conceding, we will not win the big matches. Even if we had prime Neur, (we would beat Galatasaray for sure) we would still get beaten by Mancity, Real Madrid, Bayern Arsenal, etc, just because we give away a lot of shots and these teams have players who take higher quality shots.

To fix manutd, we need to fix this high number of shots thingy and the root problem lies in....wait for it...the midfield. We are conceding a lot of shots because we DON'T control games. We don't control games because we don't have midfielders who keep the ball. We have midfielders who force the ball and are too direct. Bruno is top of that list...behind Bruno, we have Mctominay. When we didn't have Mctominay, we had Casemiro who is also too direct. People don't want to hear it but Bruno is the number 1 reason we struggle to control games. He gives the ball away a lot and even worse, he gives them away in central areas. Ball turnovers in central areas are catastrophic. Wingers out wide can lose the ball, but having your midfielders do this is criminal

There is NO way you will control a game if you keep giving the ball away a few moments after winning it. We DO NOT control games...that's why we concede so many shots. The Galatasaray game was soo back and forth, and so was the Everton game or the Luton game, etc. You win titles nowadays by controlling games. You CAN'T win titles with this ping pong football we are playing. Hate it or love it, we would control the game better with Amrabat, Mainoo, and Mount. The moment we add Bruno, we will have more chances created but we will lose control. We make the Bruno problem worse when we add Mctominay or Casemiro into the mix, all of a sudden, 2 out of our 3 midfielders treat the ball like it's a bomb. It's therefore no surprise that our games are back and forth...and every single DM we have played is struggling. Amrabat is a good player, but playing him in that midfield alone where he has massive spaces to cover is suicidal. Even Mainoo can not cover that space. We need to ditch Mctominay immediately and if we are serious, Bruno would also be dropped. Unless we start controlling games, it doesn't really matter who is in our Goal,
we will not win the prem or the CL

Ok
Despite him only being able to stop shots that are directly at him.
Despite him continually being beaten on his near post
Despite the fact he's always late diving
Despite the fact his positioning at free kicks is poor
Despite the fact his distribution is awful
Despite the fact we don't play out from the back (which is one of the main reasons we bought him)

It's the midfields fault we are conceding soft goals and he lets the ball roll under his body, flaps at crosses, (doesn't come for them). Yeah Ok (That's sarcasm)

We do control games, we controlled the game against Gala, until Ohno's brain went walk about.
I'll grant you the subs we made changed things, but it was his mistakes that cost us the points.

I don't don't where you get the idea Amrabat is a good player from, and why slate McTom, at least he's scoring goals !
Drop Bruno! He's our joint top scorer! along with Hoiland.
Mainoo had a good game against a poor Everton, and all of a sudden he's United's saviour, give the lad a chance FFS.

Wake up and smell the coffee, this team will go through a lot more transitions and players before it wins the Prem or CL again, and they wont do it with Ohno in goal.

 

[CoopersDream]

De Gea last season was worse than Onana this season statistically so I think you maybe need to wake up and understand he had a couple of bad games in one tournament.

Onana saved our skin countless times in the past 6 matches before it. He’s actually one of the stronger parts of our first 11 when you look at his league form on average.

Shot stopping he’s normally very good and is one of the reasons we still might make champions league next season.

Well, De Gea also had a few bad performances in PL last year which heavily skewed his stats in a negative way. His median performance last year was very, very good.

The difference though, was that De Gea's truly bad performances statistcially (Brentford, City and Liverpool) didn't really cost us as we would have lost those anyway. Onana's bad performances will most probably knock us out of CL.

 

[pierrethesnack]

A

De Gea wasn’t great at saving shots usually though apart from his absolute peak at United. Good blocking with his feet but got beat at his near post so many times. Couldn’t play out or claim crosses.

He conceded 70 goals in 21 games against Man City alone which shows it’s a bit of a myth he was this unstoppable keeper and actually rather average for most of his United career apart from a few stellar seasons.

Yeah, you're right. I know it's not rational, but it just bugs me. I didn't mean it as a general Onana vs. De Gea thing, really, you see those shots go in all the time and I don't think it'll ever stop puzzling me.

 

[Red71]

I think both teams were affected by his actions: we became really nervous and tentative and had that hurried energy to try and prevent anything getting into proximity of shooting range, which of course led to gaps opening up all over the pitch because we lost our shape. They were buoyed by our keeper being on the rocks and had the feeling that any shot could either lead to a direct goal or some kind of spill that they could capitalise off of. As fans, we were aware of the above and a game that was at least 50-50 felt like it was slipping away from us, or was certainly more on a knife-edge than it otherwise would've been.

We all know what kind of shooting onslaught awaits us in upcoming games now because of him too. Every team is going to test flappy hands and see if there's anything in it for them. Speculative shooting can lead to prosperous returns is the message, and it remains to be seen whether that notion is incorrect.

I'm not in the camp of going back and forth with bad keepers unless they are absolutely spectacular at certain aspects of keeping. De Gea himself was absolutely terrible at cross collection and any kind of commotion in the box, not that he got much better as time went by, but at the same time, he was world-leading at shot stopping and that was evident from the outset. The things Onana was vaunted for, we saw for maybe three games and since then, his kicking and distribution has not offered countenance to the calamity we see with his hands. I'm much slower to 'forgive' keepers than most, which is why I was quiet during his recent upturn because I held the thought that this guy hasn't proven beyond any reasonable doubt that he can be trusted, but obviously the more games without disastrous actions, the more that voice in your head can dull, but nope, the guy's back at it. Again. I just don't see how you can trust a keeper like that, and I wonder how long it takes teammates to, also.

We know ten Hag will send him out again, so it's a run of games that are a trial by fire. I've no clue how he'll do in them, but if there's calamity up his sleeve, I don't think I'll bat an eyelid, and that's not the kind of energy you want toward your keeper. Thinking back to how it felt with our best keepers between the sticks, you go into games with that added layer of comfort and confidence that even if your defenders aren't doing so well or the opponent is on you, your keeper might come up golden; what we have now is the polar opposite; games it looks like we're assured to win, this guy can come along and rip the arse out of. It's unsettling. Definitely not an area of the pitch you can afford to have insecurities about.

Agree with all of this.

I’m less bothered by his unorthodox style than I am his poor basic technique. As I was saying above, you have to have that solid technique for the fundamentals to fall back on when times are tough but, for me, his style just doesn’t allow for that. Surely that type of thing should be scrutinized by goalkeeping coaches within the club before a decision to buy is made?

With the poor goals he’s let in and his general way of keeping, he has basically written the opposition team talks for the rest of the season.

“Don't try and take the leather off the ball, just get as many shots on target as you can. Make sure you keep them low and always follow up on every shot as the lad will give you second chances…”

He’s our goalie so I want him to be a success but I just don’t see it with him. I fear he’s going to keep that defence on their nerves and that at clutch moments over the remainder of the season, he’ll let us down. Would be delighted to be proved wrong though…

 

[Ludens the Red]

A

De Gea wasn’t great at saving shots usually though apart from his absolute peak at United. Good blocking with his feet but got beat at his near post so many times. Couldn’t play out or claim crosses.

He conceded 70 goals in 21 games against Man City alone which shows it’s a bit of a myth he was this unstoppable keeper and actually rather average for most of his United career apart from a few stellar seasons.

That can’t be a real stat surely …

 

[Pogue Mahone]

That can’t be a real stat surely …

Even when we used to (usually) beat them they were often high scoring games. Throw in the monsterings we’ve got more recently and that average sounds about right.

 

[PoTMS]

At this moment I am not sure who is the worse keeper - Onana or Ramsdale

Both are known to be good with their feet but absolutely fail at basic shot stopping and positioning for a GK.

Onana. I would take Ramsdale all day over this fraud and I think Ramsdale is shite.

 

[grahamo]

He has to be dropped after that sh**show on Wednesday. I know Galatassaray's first goal should not have stood but what kind of a defensive wall was that? You could of drove a bus through the gap!
An under 12's schoolboy team goalkeeper would know how to organise and line up a wall. I was absolutely gobsmacked watching what was happening. Onana seems to be struggling even with the basics.

 

[CoopersDream]

That can’t be a real stat surely …

It's not a real stat. From what I can see we have conceded 46 goals in 23 PL games against City with De Gea. Not great but certainly not as bad as suggested.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

A

De Gea wasn’t great at saving shots usually though apart from his absolute peak at United. Good blocking with his feet but got beat at his near post so many times. Couldn’t play out or claim crosses.

He conceded 70 goals in 21 games against Man City alone which shows it’s a bit of a myth he was this unstoppable keeper and actually rather average for most of his United career apart from a few stellar seasons.

You can't quote goals against from one opposition and use it to dispell a "myth" - which isn't really a myth as De Gea was quite obviously an incredible shot-stopper for a good chunk of his career at United, and that is apparent to anyone who had eyes.

 

[IRONTUSK]

Would we have won the Galatasaray game if we had De Gea in goal still? probably yes.

Yes De Gea started making mistakes but not to the level Onana has.
The defence for Onana is that he is far better with the ball....but we aren't playing efficient possession based game so I don`t see the point.

 

[Ludens the Red]

It's not a real stat. From what I can see we have conceded 46 goals in 23 PL games against City with De Gea. Not great but certainly not as bad as suggested.

Ah makes more sense. I was doing the math in my head but couldn’t be arsed to actually look it up but there’s only been two 6’s and three 4’s so didn’t think in the remaining 15 odd games we’d have conceded 60 odd freaking goals.

 

[Mwooyo]

Ok
Despite him only being able to stop shots that are directly at him.
Despite him continually being beaten on his near post
Despite the fact he's always late diving
Despite the fact his positioning at free kicks is poor
Despite the fact his distribution is awful
Despite the fact we don't play out from the back (which is one of the main reasons we bought him)

It's the midfields fault we are conceding soft goals and he lets the ball roll under his body, flaps at crosses, (doesn't come for them). Yeah Ok (That's sarcasm)

We do control games, we controlled the game against Gala, until Ohno's brain went walk about.
I'll grant you the subs we made changed things, but it was his mistakes that cost us the points.

I don't don't where you get the idea Amrabat is a good player from, and why slate McTom, at least he's scoring goals !
Drop Bruno! He's our joint top scorer! along with Hoiland.
Mainoo had a good game against a poor Everton, and all of a sudden he's United's saviour, give the lad a chance FFS.

Wake up and smell the coffee, this team will go through a lot more transitions and players before it wins the Prem or CL again, and they wont do it with Ohno in goal.

Because you don't read the entire post and just invented your own details. I clearly said Onana is to blame. It's right there, in the first line. My whole argument is that if we had a better keeper e.g Prime Neur, we would beat teams like Galatasaray but we would still lose against the big teams because we give away too many shots. Nowhere do I state that Onana is NOT to blame

The Bruno thing is even obvious in the Galatasaray game, he lost the ball for the first Goal. He lost many other balls that led to chances. Same thing with mctominay. Look beyond the assists and the Goals...look at their entire game. You are so stuck on the goals and the assists that you can't see where the problems begin. Even if you slate Amrabat, surely you have seen Casemiro or Mainoo struggle to cover the large gaps in midfield when the ball is lost. Even the 3rd goal is mainoo racing to cover someone after a ball loss. We DO NOT control games...controlling games is NOT about creating more chances than the opposition, its about retaining possession when you have the ball and controlling in which areas of the pitch you can afford to lose it. When you understand that where you lose the ball matters, you will be able to understand that bringing in a new keeper will not fix us. You need to look beyond the stats because you are missing the Game

Amrabat is a good player...we just don't play him in a system that supports his attributes. Even Casemiro looks horrible in this new ping-pong system. As long as we continue with Bruno and Mctominay/Casemiro on the pitch at once...forget about winning the big games because they give the ball away a lot. Don't get me wrong, they are needed as part of the team but at specific times. Having them both on the pitch is suicidal. Having h

 

[ElDiabloRojo]

This guy is rubbish in games but gets full support, an absolute liability.

Sancho is rubbish in training and gets dumped (on full salary) because he spoke out (maybe he seen others as bad, worse even) and refuses to apologise (wrongly).

If this clown keeper starts against Newcastle then it sends a message to the rest that some are more favourite than others regardless of performance.

 

[Sylar]

Would we have won the Galatasaray game if we had De Gea in goal still? probably yes.

Yes De Gea started making mistakes but not to the level Onana has.
The defence for Onana is that he is far better with the ball....but we aren't playing efficient possession based game so I don`t see the point.

One defence for Onana is that he hasnt had a settled spine in front of him. Its the one point im hoping to see, to fully judge him and his strengths. However right now his weaknesses are glaring and highlighted more so.
Last season we could say the strongest team in front of him was RB, Varane, Martinez, Shaw, with Eriksen, casemiro and then Bruno.
This season Ive seen nearly every combo of CB with us using probably our 4th and 5th choices, and it hasnt even been consistent with so much chopping and changing.


The one big disappointment for me is the way hes been used. Not sure if its due to him being lobbed pre-season or not, but I expected him to be on the edge of the box, as a passing option, which would then allow our CBs to split, have a cm drop a little, and widen the pitch with our full backs.
I dont understand why we would get him, if we werent going to try and use his strengths. Maybe we will see more of it with Mainoo playing, and maybe we will see it when Martinez comes back. But you would have hoped we would at least try it even with second choices to get into a pattern of it.

 

[IRELANDUNITED]

This guy is rubbish in games but gets full support, an absolute liability.

Sancho is rubbish in training and gets dumped (on full salary) because he spoke out (maybe he seen others as bad, worse even) and refuses to apologise (wrongly).

If this clown keeper starts against Newcastle then it sends a message to the rest that some are more favourite than others regardless of performance.

You are wrong here on so many levels it’s actually amusing. I suspect you might be a troll but nevertheless, I’ll bite.

First of all Onana hasn’t been rubbish in games, he’s had some howlers of course but he’s played well also, especially recently before his mistakes last Wednesday. Nobody in the league has more clean sheets than he does and he was one of our 3 best players against Everton last Sunday.

Secondly let me correct you on your Sancho comment. Sancho wasn’t frozen out just because he was rubbish, he was frozen out because he didn’t follow the managers instruction's, wasn’t playing well, publicly questioned the managers decisions and has since refused to apologise to the manager in order to regain a place in the squad. If he had done his job, known his place, he would still be in the squad.

Third, calling any of our players a “clown” is doing no good whatsoever. There are enough United haters in the world without our own fans spreading needless hate on our team, especially a new player. If you are a genuine United fan you should know better.

Hope this helps.

 

[Oranges038]

Would we have won the Galatasaray game if we had De Gea in goal still? probably yes.

Yes De Gea started making mistakes but not to the level Onana has.
The defence for Onana is that he is far better with the ball....but we aren't playing efficient possession based game so I don`t see the point.

It was 5 years of howler after howler in big matches.

Would Utd have won the Sevilla game with Onana in goal? What about the Barca one a few years ago? What about The EL final under Ole?

Probably yes.

 

[ElDiabloRojo]

You are wrong here on so many levels it’s actually amusing. I suspect you might be a troll but nevertheless, I’ll bite.

First of all Onana hasn’t been rubbish in games, he’s had some howlers of course but he’s played well also, especially recently before his mistakes last Wednesday. Nobody in the league has more clean sheets than he does and he was one of our 3 best players against Everton last Sunday.

Secondly let me correct you on your Sancho comment. Sancho wasn’t frozen out just because he was rubbish, he was frozen out because he didn’t follow the managers instruction's, wasn’t playing well, publicly questioned the managers decisions and has since refused to apologise to the manager in order to regain a place in the squad. If he had done his job, known his place, he would still be in the squad.

Third, calling any of our players a “clown” is doing no good whatsoever. There are enough United haters in the world without our own fans spreading needless hate on our team, especially a new player. If you are a genuine United fan you should know better.

Hope this helps.

Well we are entitled to our opinions, but he was like a clown the last night. And he isn't good enough, full stop for me.

ETH said Sancho's standards were not good enough, I missed the rest about instructions etc.

A lot of scouser fans that I know have replaced hating United with laughter, they are loving it, not hating.

 

[mu4c_20le]

One defence for Onana is that he hasnt had a settled spine in front of him. Its the one point im hoping to see, to fully judge him and his strengths. However right now his weaknesses are glaring and highlighted more so.
Last season we could say the strongest team in front of him was RB, Varane, Martinez, Shaw, with Eriksen, casemiro and then Bruno.
This season Ive seen nearly every combo of CB with us using probably our 4th and 5th choices, and it hasnt even been consistent with so much chopping and changing.

He had that back line + Casemiro for the first two games of the season, Wolves and Spurs.

 

[Champ]

It was 5 years of howler after howler in big matches.

Would Utd have won the Sevilla game with Onana in goal? What about the Barca one a few years ago? What about The EL final under Ole?

Probably yes.

Based on Onanas European exploits so far this season, there's a good chance we wouldn't have even been close to winning those games!!

 

[Sylar]

He had that back line + Casemiro for the first two games of the season, Wolves and Spurs.

Right, so youre agreeing with me?

 

[Sylar]

Based on Onanas European exploits so far this season, there's a good chance we wouldn't have even been close to winning those games!!

What about based on Onanas exploits last season, given the games were last season?

 

[mu4c_20le]

Right, so youre agreeing with me?

Yeah, he was ace in those two games.

 

[Sylar]

Yeah, he was ace in those two games.

Ah good ol sarcasm. So let me simplify it, which part doesnt make sense or do you disagree with...

One defence for Onana is that he hasnt had a settled spine in front of him.
This season Ive seen nearly every combo of CB with us using probably our 4th and 5th choices, and it hasnt even been consistent with so much chopping and changing.

 

[mu4c_20le]

Ah good ol sarcasm. So let me simplify it, which part doesnt make sense or do you disagree with...

Nothing to disagree with, if he has a better team and faces less shots, he'll make less blunders. Everyone knows that. I'm just pointing out that he did play with our best team already and didn't look too different?