There are very few people wanting Onana gone so easy there. He's just getting a lot of valid criticism.
This from a City fan on another site:
24
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 51
- Clean sheets
- 13
- Goals
- 0
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 6
- Status
This from a City fan on another site:
Yes, same reputable journalists.
He does these awkward short lunges instead of fast twitch agile one hand palm saves & stretches many great top goalies do. So far has had shockingly poor reach. I think we might have bought a Bravo mk2. He at least likes to put on a thrilling show.
Reach issue makes me fear we will concede many goals as long as they are sufficiently well placed vs Onana. Also not seeing any ball playing from this team anytime soon the way things are developing, so not looking like we will benefit or compensate with 3-5 going forward to match the leak from said style.
In that case, I totally agree with you,
A couple of fair points.
However, de gea was famously good with getting his feet onto balls after a cutback. He saves 2 of those goals in the vast majority of games, even now.
Second point, onana has sort of been thrown under the bus by defenders, expecting him to command the 6 yard box by himself, and we would defend deeper with de gea in goal, so that ball would probably have been cleared.
Also, plenty of clubs would love to gave him, if his wage demands weren't ridiculously high (which is our fault)
I’m not sold so far at all. Wouldn’t be surprised if we are revisiting this in a season or two.
He just doesn’t seem to make saves he should.
He just doesn’t seem to make saves he should.
Just on those points;
I don't dispute that he was excellent at making stops with his feet, however that was several years ago. I wouldn't say he's been particularly special at it over the past few years personally. Specifically on the two goals in the second half yesterday, which I presume you're on about, I actually agree that more often than not De Gea saves the third, I completely disagree that he gets to the second goal though. However, I think more often than not Onana saves the third goal too, which seems to be a point that most are missing; in terms of probabilities the odds would be on both of them saving it more times than not, that doesn't mean it never goes in.
We've actually averaged a deeper defensive line in our first few games of this season than we did last season. So that's putting more pressure on a goalkeeper used to playing in a team wanting to play higher up the pitch. Also statistically over the last couple of seasons we gave away more shots within the six yard box than the vast majority of teams. So I highly doubt it would have been cleared last season, it more than likely would have been a goal.
In terms of De Gea's wage demands, they can't be stupidly high because he's not earning a penny at the moment. Also he had supposedly agreed to a deal on considerably below £200k with us in the summer, there are plenty of teams that could afford to pay a free transfer signing that wage who signed other goalkeepers instead in the summer. If he was particularly wanted by a top level club anywhere, he'd be playing football right now.
Onana has obviously been told by ETH to not play as advanced as he did at Inter. Partly due to how bad our defensive line is at dealing with the press.
He’s been hampered by some poor defending, but I generally agree that he doesn’t exactly inspire much confidence in how he goes about things. Reminds me a bit of Barthez in this regard.
Hope you realise German press indicated this was not true
Inter played 5 at back with 1-2 hard working defensive minded/dynamic mid in front almost all the time. I think that reduced the amount of times he was needed to step in, still he conceded 42 in serie A. Sommer soon 35y/o that replaced has conceded 1 in 4 matches. With United he is so far very exposed, under fire and glaring, basic weakness in him are emerging and compounded.
Italian top teams can't go and concede more than <30/year and win with certainty, little more forgiving in EPL at >30-45. Inter were most likely not happy with what / how they conceded. And roughly the same team now looking totally impregnable with what Caf would call a total has-been between posts. In Europe they had an easy ride to finals and leaked vs Bayern and a very weakened Barca and couldn't hold vs City.
I feel what we are witnessing is him;
A. exposed in a less defensive team/formation/league.
B. exposed in a higher pressure league, teams score more.
Our "scouting" team buy on hype and opportunity, not real world need or pragmatism. Hope I'm wrong but this is a mismatched purchase at a time where we aren't ready / transitioned to whatever we aim at with him. I feel this one might break EtH if he doesn't stabilize us fast enough. EtH has the same bug Pep has to be a purist to a fault.
Think it's very poor scouting Utd didn't seem to see his shot stopping as an issue. Surely if Costa had decent distribution but better handling they should have paid bit more
Think this is on EtH to make or break and show his genius. He keep going with personally known quantities over the more sensible choices and perhaps there are methods to his choices not obvious. It worked with Licha but not as clearly after that so far. Costa would have been a more balanced choice and has more ability with hands and not bad on modern metrics. Time will tell. But lacking aerially and poor with hands in EPL is not something to make weekends enjoyable. We already seeing lot of crashing into big lads and arm flailing, not very encouraging.
First and second goals were too hard to save, but he should've saved the 3rd one, as it seems his reaction was a bit slow, it seemed to me that if he reacted half second faster he would've saved it.
Sorry but we are too harsh with him.
The guy can't save every shot he has since the goals conceded were all really hard to save (except one or two)
I am not a fan of him, but Ten Hag brang him to the club for his qualities with the ball.
If we wanted a shot stopper we would have kept De Gea.
I am sorry but with two or three better players technically (better than AWB, Varane) we can have a better system and be better against the press.
The guy can't save every shot he has since the goals conceded were all really hard to save (except one or two)
I am not a fan of him, but Ten Hag brang him to the club for his qualities with the ball.
If we wanted a shot stopper we would have kept De Gea.
I am sorry but with two or three better players technically (better than AWB, Varane) we can have a better system and be better against the press.
I am surprised by the criticism of Onana. He's not been chucking them into his own net.
Opposition players are, regularly, getting cutbacks in the penalty box bang in front of our goal. He'd have to have the reactions of Superman to save shots from there.
Our defending is AWFUL. If the opposition can cut through you like a hot knife through butter, the keeper is going to have a helluva time keeping a clean sheet.
Opposition players are, regularly, getting cutbacks in the penalty box bang in front of our goal. He'd have to have the reactions of Superman to save shots from there.
Our defending is AWFUL. If the opposition can cut through you like a hot knife through butter, the keeper is going to have a helluva time keeping a clean sheet.
You know the criticism is bad when you’ve got a poster above saying he could save that first goal. It’s from about 5 yards out and hit low into the ground. Unbelievable really.
Should have saved the 3rd one. Did make a very good save towards the end against Fati though.
He's not an elite shot stopper like De Gea. I think in a dominant team he's excellent though. If Pep had him at City we would all be raving about him.
He's not an elite shot stopper like De Gea. I think in a dominant team he's excellent though. If Pep had him at City we would all be raving about him.
Maybe we should've gone for the T-rex at Everton 
Finding a perfect GK is a casino roulette. With Onana we get a GK with a bit worse in handling technique, but better in every other aspect.
While I never thought this position is a priority, I hoped that at least we make this one right. I preferred Martinez actually, but thought that Onana is gonna be a good signing:
So far he looks like a midfielder who plays in the goal.
So far he looks like a midfielder who plays in the goal.
Our expected goals against this season is 8.07 and we have conceded 7 goals.
Stats do not back up him having been a poor shot stopper at the club so far
Stats do not back up him having been a poor shot stopper at the club so far
i'm not worried about him
He’s been fine, I really don’t get the criticism. Most of the goals he’s conceded he’s stood no chance and no gk would’ve saved them. Already too much romanticism for De Gea, with his reputation as being the greatest shot stopper ever, has had a whole highlight reel of absolute howlers over the past couple of seasons. He let tons of soft shots in. Of all the problems in the team, Onana isn’t one of them. Just because the team is terrible right now, the knives are out for everyone.
Still too early to judge for me
The quality of the chances we've been offering up mean I give him the benefit of the doubt, he might have kept a couple out but overall he's not negatively impacted the results so far imo
I did expect him to be a bit more box office in the build up though, aside from the wonderful bit of play at spurs to feed Garnacho he's been very conservative
The quality of the chances we've been offering up mean I give him the benefit of the doubt, he might have kept a couple out but overall he's not negatively impacted the results so far imo
I did expect him to be a bit more box office in the build up though, aside from the wonderful bit of play at spurs to feed Garnacho he's been very conservative
We have conceded 10, assume your source hasn't updated from the weekend.
Seems fair, given all the other problems we're facing. If everything is going well and he's still letting in soft goals or sticking to his line, then we might start to worry, but still early days.
He's going to be scapegoated, and some of it is absolutely fair criticism.
His shot stopping abilities have generally looked below par, but this has happened before with De Gea for example.
What concerns me is how disconnected he and the team look in build-up. He isn't playing the football we've been accustomed to seeing from him, and the actual structure of the team remains an absolute mess. I do think it stems from the fact that many of them probably are very used to Dave Saves, even those here for 12 months. It's literally one extreme to the other.
I never thought a goalkeeper could be a luxury player, but for us, it seems that way. I can't stand Goldbridge but he suggested we weren't ready for an expansive balling playing GK until the team were basically drilled elsewhere on the pitch. There are some pretty ruthless analyses of the Brighton game suggesting out pressing is still absolutely basic, and our patterns of play are effectively found out and completely nullified within 15 minutes...with the suggestion that either EtH isn't getting through to them or he isn't as good as we thought.
Back on Onana, he needs a big save or a big random assist to get out of this crater he's falling into already.
His shot stopping abilities have generally looked below par, but this has happened before with De Gea for example.
What concerns me is how disconnected he and the team look in build-up. He isn't playing the football we've been accustomed to seeing from him, and the actual structure of the team remains an absolute mess. I do think it stems from the fact that many of them probably are very used to Dave Saves, even those here for 12 months. It's literally one extreme to the other.
I never thought a goalkeeper could be a luxury player, but for us, it seems that way. I can't stand Goldbridge but he suggested we weren't ready for an expansive balling playing GK until the team were basically drilled elsewhere on the pitch. There are some pretty ruthless analyses of the Brighton game suggesting out pressing is still absolutely basic, and our patterns of play are effectively found out and completely nullified within 15 minutes...with the suggestion that either EtH isn't getting through to them or he isn't as good as we thought.
Back on Onana, he needs a big save or a big random assist to get out of this crater he's falling into already.
We've conceded 10 goals over 5 matches, only 3 or 4 at most of which are on Onana, although to be fair to him we didn't place shot-stopping as the highest priority for the position going into the new season so we went spent 40mfor him, an outlay that certainly now in hindsight (and in foresight, but I was shouted down at the time) looks pretty daft. Our defending isn't better, and is arguably worse, and our attack is without question worse. We can and should blame everyone else for their poor performances, but the entire case for Onana was that he would "transform" our play.
Which was always absurd, but transfer muppetry and the hit from a transfer being completed does strange things to peoples brains. Build a team towards a possession style and we will see the value of his ball playing but a keepers passing isn't a panacea. How many times have we seen this though, remember when the word was that Smallings lack of ability on the ball was holding the entire team back and by replacing him suddenly the passing from the back would be revolutionized.
We like looking for simple solutions, blaming many of our issues on 1 or 2 players and then are shocked when their replacement makes no major difference. Unfortunately it looks as if our recruitment team has the same logic instead of the foresight to build a team.
Feel for Amrabat, due to the issues with our midfield he is going to be hyped up an unrealistic level then very likely people will be disappointed with him.
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Someone on here literally tried to tell me that we would concede less shots on goals simply because Onana is not De Gea.
Conceded 10 from 9.07 xG (one own goal which doesn't count in the xG).
And the only goal I was actually disappointed in him conceding was the Joao Pedro one. The rest were all sitters, chances where the opposing player had acted of time and space to pick his spot, deflections from close in that he could do ~nothing about and he's done well otherwise IMO.
Our defense and midfield are not skilled, drilled or confident enough to be able to utilize Onana's key strength, which is supposed to be his distribution.
Feels like a chicken or egg scenario. Do you first ensure you have the players who are ready to play out of the back, of do you bring in the keeper to be able to play the system?
Feels like a chicken or egg scenario. Do you first ensure you have the players who are ready to play out of the back, of do you bring in the keeper to be able to play the system?
I really like him and think he offers something vital for us to become a modern and competitive team.
My major concern is we simply don't have the outfield players to retain and recycle possession to make hime effective. He has been exposed way too often and it's clear our defence was too accustomed to playing with a keeper who could bail them out. We need so much work done it's untrue.
My major concern is we simply don't have the outfield players to retain and recycle possession to make hime effective. He has been exposed way too often and it's clear our defence was too accustomed to playing with a keeper who could bail them out. We need so much work done it's untrue.
It includes Brighton but is only the figure for open play:
https://theanalyst.com/eu/2023/08/premier-league-stats-2023-24/
Set plays is 1.21 xG with 2 goals conceded.
So that's 9.28 xG with 9 goals conceded, not sure why it had 9 and not 10 though
We need the right players around him. We play a higher line when he plays, we've no real pace in central defence. We have central mids who can't track runners, we seem so open when teams run at us. Pacey forwards have space to attack in behind, as do the opposition midfielders who make runs from deep.
The only two shots id have thought he would be really disappointed with are the Rice and Pedro ones.
I really think its harsh to judge him fully, after five games, where two goals in that arsenal match he had Maguire and Evans as his CBs
And except the first two games, weve not really had a consistent back four nor midfield.
I really think its harsh to judge him fully, after five games, where two goals in that arsenal match he had Maguire and Evans as his CBs
And except the first two games, weve not really had a consistent back four nor midfield.
That's exactly right
Out of curiosity why do you think Martinez Shaw and Lindelof are players in the defence who do not have the skill to play out from the back?
The main issue is really in the midfield (which is why we signed Amrabat and Mainoo was being integrated) and in the attack (handling the long passes to bypass press) which is why we brought in Hojlund although I think he needs a lot of improvement here.
The team as a whole will have to get used to it and considering Hojlund was not available in pre season. We are quite a bit behind other sides working on our play.
That's daft on its face. However phenomenal or pathetic a keeper may be, that keeper will be facing the same number of shots on goal, with the exception of shots from corner kicks that could have been claimed by the keeper, an area where De Gea was admittedly weak.
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