Let's talk 'keepers: who do we buy and why?

a very wild thought: perhaps we can try Thibaut Courtois
reasons:
1. Contract going to expiry in 2026, with 1 year left on contract and at the age of 33, Real Madrid may wish to move him on and not ask too much from him. Something like 30M may do.
2. Unquestionable world class keeper still in his (late) prime
3. Boyhood United fan. We may try to offer him 250k per week (same salary as in Real Madrid).

I think he could be our van der sar
 
a very wild thought: perhaps we can try Thibaut Courtois
reasons:
1. Contract going to expiry in 2026, with 1 year left on contract and at the age of 33, Real Madrid may wish to move him on and not ask too much from him. Something like 30M may do.
2. Unquestionable world class keeper still in his (late) prime
3. Boyhood United fan. We may try to offer him 250k per week (same salary as in Real Madrid).

I think he could be our van der sar
Left field, but an interesting idea! Wonder if he'd go for it. I expect Real Madrid would want to extend him further though, but they do have a fairly safe pair of hands in Lunin too..
 
a very wild thought: perhaps we can try Thibaut Courtois
reasons:
1. Contract going to expiry in 2026, with 1 year left on contract and at the age of 33, Real Madrid may wish to move him on and not ask too much from him. Something like 30M may do.
2. Unquestionable world class keeper still in his (late) prime
3. Boyhood United fan. We may try to offer him 250k per week (same salary as in Real Madrid).

I think he could be our van der sar

Not a bad shout, but there's zero rumors about Madrid looking to move him on, and second, if he were to move, there will be string of other top clubs in for him.

We have to buy from a much lower rung, and considering how atrocious Onana is, it shouldn't be that hard to find an upgrade.
 
Doubtful source but would be excellent news. A young exciting Spanish GK, rings a bell right?

La Cope is a good spanish source. Garcia is the best spanish GK. Better than Unai Simon and Raya and one of the best GK of the word. From Onana to Garcia: incredible improvement: this change your whole defense. He should be your first signing.
 
La Cope is a good spanish source. Garcia is the best spanish GK. Better than Unai Simon and Raya and one of the best GK of the word. From Onana to Garcia: incredible improvement: this change your whole defense. He should be your first signing.
I didn't know that. Great! Also, he has a very cheap release clause right? We can't let him join Arsenal.
 
A good keeper would add close to 10 points a season compared to Onana.

Looks a decent price as well
 
Buy a solid, boring, uneventful keeper that does the fundamentals at a high level. If there is a Van Der Sar regen anywhere, buy that keeper.
 
As big of a liability Onana is, I'd still place a new keeper below striker, #10 and CM in the transfer priorities. I'd be really surprised if we sort that out already this year. I imagine the plan is to give Onana another chance, hopefully behind a much improved side, and then deal with it next summer if he doesn't improve.
 
As big of a liability Onana is, I'd still place a new keeper below striker, #10 and CM in the transfer priorities. I'd be really surprised if we sort that out already this year. I imagine the plan is to give Onana another chance, hopefully behind a much improved side, and then deal with it next summer if he doesn't improve.

You could be right, but I hope not. We have so many positions to upgrade and I can’t see us resolving them all in a single window. However, having a keeper who can do the basics and make far fewer errors has to be a priority, just like finding a striker who knows where the goal is.
 
If we could sign Garcia, Cunha and Delap all on release clauses before pre-season that would splendid.
 
We've definitely been looking at keepers. Hopefully we get round to it.
I don't think so.
Apparently we are going to stick with him this season and he will be able to rectify some of his technical issues.
I find it quite hard to understand that he cannot get a strong hand on to shots and parry them away from danger areas if he cannot hold on to them.
I still find it funny when he berated Harry not long after he came to the club for stuffing up and now he has left him in the dust for making mistakes in conceding goals.
 
La Cope is a good spanish source. Garcia is the best spanish GK. Better than Unai Simon and Raya and one of the best GK of the word. From Onana to Garcia: incredible improvement: this change your whole defense. He should be your first signing.
I just watched a video, he parries the ball out for a corner instead of back to the striker, want!
 
I don't think so.
Apparently we are going to stick with him this season and he will be able to rectify some of his technical issues.
I find it quite hard to understand that he cannot get a strong hand on to shots and parry them away from danger areas if he cannot hold on to them.
I still find it funny when he berated Harry not long after he came to the club for stuffing up and now he has left him in the dust for making mistakes in conceding goals.
I think there's a world where Onana stays and we still sign a keeper. Bayindir may leave. I do think it's something we need to address.
 
As big of a liability Onana is, I'd still place a new keeper below striker, #10 and CM in the transfer priorities. I'd be really surprised if we sort that out already this year. I imagine the plan is to give Onana another chance, hopefully behind a much improved side, and then deal with it next summer if he doesn't improve.

I don’t understand this line of thinking. Replacing Onana will be like-for-like from a financial perspective. If he leaves, he’s not leaving for free. We only need to spend to replace him if we are given money for selling him.

If the Saudi’s offer us 25m for him, we should take it and get a new keeper with that money.
 
As big of a liability Onana is, I'd still place a new keeper below striker, #10 and CM in the transfer priorities. I'd be really surprised if we sort that out already this year. I imagine the plan is to give Onana another chance, hopefully behind a much improved side, and then deal with it next summer if he doesn't improve.
It's definitely possible even without CL, if our targets are Cunha (and if they allow us to pay his clause in installments) and Delap. Joan Garcia has a 18m release clause. We could also try ship off Onana to Saudi, even though that seems difficult.
 
It's definitely possible even without CL, if our targets are Cunha (and if they allow us to pay his clause in installments) and Delap. Joan Garcia has a 18m release clause. We could also try ship off Onana to Saudi, even though that seems difficult.
18m release clause is a bargain! We should activate that right now
 
Does James Trafford have what it takes?
I'm not sure it matters. I highly doubt we're looking to go spend minimum £40m on a young keeper.

Burnley aren't selling him for cheap, especially after being promoted.
 
As big of a liability Onana is, I'd still place a new keeper below striker, #10 and CM in the transfer priorities. I'd be really surprised if we sort that out already this year. I imagine the plan is to give Onana another chance, hopefully behind a much improved side, and then deal with it next summer if he doesn't improve.
The problem with Onana is that his fundamentals are actually ok when you look at it. He's ranked 47th in Europe at shot stop (out of 110) which is average but not awful, and last year he was 33rd. On that basis you wouldn't worry about changing him as a priority. The issue of course is his mistakes which, for some reason, particularly seem to happen in big games. This makes it hard to assess whether he should be replaced or not.

Because on the one hand, the mistakes are really the only issue and they were never really a feature of his game at other clubs. So they might just stop. But on other hand, when mistakes like this are so out of the blue, its impossible to predict and account for them. There's nothing you can really do to make them less likely and you can't predict when they'll strike.

I think a smarter move might to get a real steady-eddie as backup keeper. There are boring keepers who do the basics well all over Europe for well under £10M. If Onana stops making mistakes, great, and if he doesn't, then at least we have someone better than Altay on the bench to tide us over til next summer.
 
I just saw a comment on Reddit that even if we hadn’t conceded a single goal this season, we still wouldn’t be top of the league.

That’s how bad our attack is. As much as I don’t think Onana is our answer, we simply aren’t in a position to be spending massive money on a keeper this summer.

If someone like Garcia can be done for 20m and we can afford it then great. But anything more than that is unrealistic I reckon.
 
The problem with Onana is that his fundamentals are actually ok when you look at it. He's ranked 47th in Europe at shot stop (out of 110) which is average but not awful, and last year he was 33rd. On that basis you wouldn't worry about changing him as a priority. The issue of course is his mistakes which, for some reason, particularly seem to happen in big games. This makes it hard to assess whether he should be replaced or not.

Because on the one hand, the mistakes are really the only issue and they were never really a feature of his game at other clubs. So they might just stop. But on other hand, when mistakes like this are so out of the blue, its impossible to predict and account for them. There's nothing you can really do to make them less likely and you can't predict when they'll strike.

I think a smarter move might to get a real steady-eddie as backup keeper. There are boring keepers who do the basics well all over Europe for well under £10M. If Onana stops making mistakes, great, and if he doesn't, then at least we have someone better than Altay on the bench to tide us over til next summer.
Onana stops the shots he should stop, nothing more. That coupled with the mistakes and fundamental flaw of parrying the ball to attackers mean he is just a pretty poor keeper.
 
As big of a liability Onana is, I'd still place a new keeper below striker, #10 and CM in the transfer priorities. I'd be really surprised if we sort that out already this year. I imagine the plan is to give Onana another chance, hopefully behind a much improved side, and then deal with it next summer if he doesn't improve.

He’s a complete liability, and that nervousness spreads across the entire team.

His replacement is an absolute priority - and unlike strikers and no 10’s can be done relatively cheaply (£20-30m), and we can see a big improvement.
 
He’s a complete liability, and that nervousness spreads across the entire team.

His replacement is an absolute priority - and unlike strikers and no 10’s can be done relatively cheaply (£20-30m), and we can see a big improvement.
Part of the reason his mistakes are so disastrous is that we can't score goals. An occasional goalkeeping howler is much more manageable if the team can make up for it. Just take a look at how we rank for goals scored and conceded. We're 15th in the league on goals scored and have scored 5 more than a team that is getting relegated. On goals conceded we are more middle of the pack - not much worse than the likes of City, Chelsea and Newcastle. Goalscoring is much more of a problem than conceding.

That being said, maybe it's possible to do smart business on a solid goalkeeper. But I would definitely spend the big bucks on striker and #10 first.
 
a very wild thought: perhaps we can try Thibaut Courtois
reasons:
1. Contract going to expiry in 2026, with 1 year left on contract and at the age of 33, Real Madrid may wish to move him on and not ask too much from him. Something like 30M may do.
2. Unquestionable world class keeper still in his (late) prime
3. Boyhood United fan. We may try to offer him 250k per week (same salary as in Real Madrid).

I think he could be our van der sar
I thought about that recently but then read him talk about how much he loves living in Madrid etc. didn’t seem like he was open to leaving anytime soon