I personally don’t trust him anymore, I lost that trust and when it’s gone, it’s gone and it ain’t coming back.
Happened with Barthez, Bosnich, Carroll, Howard.
Now, it makes no difference in the slightest what I think, but what matters is how his teammates feel, do they trust him?
Evra mentioned on the Overlap how difficult it was going from VDS who was vocal, to De Gea who was the exact opposite.
Then SAF started rotating between De Gea and Lindegaard, eventually Lindergaard got injured and De Gea was picked to be the number 1, not before SAF telling him after a bad performance that he was actually shit but he gets the number 1 spot because he trusts him, and the rest is history.
Now, De Gea was literally a kid, he was always going to make mistakes and needing time to grow into such a crucial role at a massive club.
Onana isn’t a kid he’s an experienced goalkeeper, do his defenders really trust him?
Or they’re terrified he’s going to commit another howler?
Judging goalkeepers by stats is completely mental to me, it makes no sense, he could have 90% shots saved but if be keeps conceding soft goals we are fecked.
Its the exact opposite with attackers who could do nothing the entire game but if they score one or two they’ve done their job, a goalkeepers job is never done, until the final whistle, one error could ruin all the good they’ve done the entire match.
Scoring goals wins you football matches.
Conceding soft goals losses you football matches, impossible to get anywhere with a goalie who keeps conceding soft goals.
However, to Onana’s defense, does he fully trust his defenders?
How many different variations of a back four he’s had to play with? A lot.
So when we have a goalie without a consistent back four in front of him, and defenders who don’t fully trust their keeper gives you answers why we are as poor as we’ve been, its just a mess, and with a chaotic situation at the back, the entire structure of the team is affected.
Another thing about Onana, I remember his debut against Madrid, he genuinely looked better on the ball than any of our outfield players, then he got lobbed by Bellingham because he was playing so far up the pitch.
Then, against Lens, he got lobbed from the halfway line again, and we never seem him fully confident on the ball as he looked that pre season, he didn’t play as high up the pitch and haven’t been a sweeper keeper since.
I would genuinely consider playing him in midfield in some Carabao cup or Europa League match no one cares about, would make for a cool little story, if nothing else.