Oranges038
Full Member
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2020
- Messages
- 15,002
I don’t recall seeing your username before so I have no quarrel with you, but there was post after post after post — and dozens more — how our weakness in attack last season was directly related to De Gea’s infirmities and how Onana would “transform” our attack.
Progressing the ball out of the back effectively has absolutely no bearing on our finishing on goal. Let me be clear on this point. We did a reasonably good job last season creating chances, with Bruno actually leaving the PL in chance creation. But we were woeful on chance finishing. I don’t have the stats now (posted all this earlier this summer) but the numbers left no doubt that what our eyes saw was actually backed up by the data: we controlled possession reasonably well, created our fair share of chances, but that our finishing was abysmal. Astonishingly abysmal.
Onana was somehow supposed to cause the — and I’m laughing as I type these words — “transformation” of our attack.
No goalkeeper who will ever live can have any impact on the ability of forwards to finishing on great chances.
Onana can’t be blamed in any way for our woeful performance in attack this season. Rashford got his first goal in four matches. We know about the ridiculousness of Martial and ineffectiveness of Antony and Sancho. Garnacho is still a teenager so no complaints there. After four matches our forwards have scored only one goal. That’s not on Onana in any way, but it was always dreamy insanity to view a new modern keeper as having a transformational impact on our attacking performance.
Yes, we’re better off without a keeper who shat his pants at the sight of an oncoming attacker, but we would be well advised to moderate our expectations as to how much a goalkeeper can improve our performance on the opponent’s own third of the pitch.
Still trotting out this bollocks.
I don't think anyone ever said he would transform the attack or ensure chances were getting finished. But if you have those dozens of posts at hand, please feel free to quote them.
What people including myself said was that having a keeper who could play higher and was better on the ball, would lead to being able to play out from the back better, being able to hold onto the ball better and create more sustained periods of pressure higher up the pitch. This in turn leads to being able to create more higher quality chances.
It's only been 4 games, but already you're in here saying I told you so. We've already seen how much more comfortable and controlled the team is playing and keeping the ball in the defensive 3rd. Teams have already stopped pressing Onana, they been trying to press the ball towards the next weakest link, which has clearly been identified as AWB. I remember early on in Pep's time at City John Stones was being targeted in a similar fashion, especially in European games.
The next step is getting the link through midfield to attack working. It takes more than a handful of games for players to get used to playing and defending higher, timing runs and movements when starting attacks from a keeper who can pick out different passes, it takes time to get all these player movements working in sync consistently.
You need to relax and wait and see over the course of a larger number of games, how the team adapts to playing with a keeper who doesn't hoof the ball aimlessly at every opportunity. Before starting with all the I told you so bollocks.