Andre Onana tested team-mates’ patience – now he is showing why Man United wanted him

Galatasaray was the low point. It truly was a ‘Welcome to Hell’ moment for Andre Onana as he stood alone on the turf in Istanbul, his team-mates already in the dressing room. Two Hakim Ziyech free kicks had caught him off guard and resulted in goals.

After the final whistle, Onana threw his gloves to the floor and covered his face with his hands. He tried to pull his shirt over his head as if he wanted to hide from the world. Then he stood alone. Onana’s team-mates didn’t offer support, they were too annoyed. The draw in Turkey effectively knocked United out of the Champions League group stage. Their goalkeeper’s apparent inability to protect his goal — he also made mistakes in the opening group game at Bayern Munich — had cost them.

For Onana, the European campaign was a huge disappointment, particularly when you consider he had excelled in the Champions League last season, reaching the final with Inter Milan and earning praise from Pep Guardiola, whose Manchester City side beat them to lift the trophy.

Five months later and back playing in the same city, Onana had become a figure of derision and a source of memes online.

Even though a stern-faced Erik ten Hag refused to blame him for errors, his team-mates doubted him, no matter what they said publicly. In one training session, a young player who had barely played a first-team game said, “Are you going to save one or what?” after he felt United’s new goalkeeper wasn’t stopping enough shots.

Onana was down and told people close to him: “I don’t know what is happening to me with these mistakes. I always have confidence in myself but now I’m losing it.” Those who know him best said he moved his body differently during games. The goalkeeper they saw wasn’t the goalkeeper they knew.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. “A playmaker in gloves” was one description of Onana after his performance in the Champions League final for Inter Milan, but United’s disastrous campaign in the 2023-24 group stage, coupled with a turbulent start in the Premier League, led many — including several players sad that their mate David de Gea had departed — to believe United would have been better off retaining the Spaniard.

De Gea, too, had an awful start to life at United. Like De Gea did, Onana has started to turn things around. Just as Sir Alex Ferguson stuck by De Gea in 2011 when even some team-mates doubted him, so Ten Hag has kept faith with Onana.

The Cameroonian, 27, has been one of United’s best players in 2024. Game after game, he is producing top saves and as the doubters become admirers, his manager is feeling more vindicated.

“He’s doing very well,” Ten Hag told reporters following Onana’s strong performance in the FA Cup against Nottingham Forest. “He has very good performances in the Premier League, he’s progressing, so he has to see this as a base and step up from here.”

Onana is very grateful to Ten Hag for signing him, the manager having pushed hard for him because he wanted a goalkeeper to play out from the back and build play, something he felt was missing with De Gea. Ten Hag also felt Onana’s passing ability — along with that of centre-back Lisandro Martinez — would give United options when playing through opponents’ press.

Onana has been involved in three passing moves this season that have resulted in United having a shot and two of them — including Marcus Rashford’s in the Manchester derby on Sunday — have led to goals. Against City, Onana broke their press with an accurate ball to Fernandes. He took the risk and got the reward.

Onana’s first season in England is a strange example of perception versus performance. Statistically, he is one of the best goalkeepers in the Premier League and has been for the majority of the campaign.

Using a metric called ‘expected goals on target’ (xGOT), we can calculate how many goals Onana has prevented compared to the average goalkeeper. Whereas expected goals (xG) measures the likelihood of a goalscoring chance before the shot is taken, xGOT looks at what happens once the attacker has pulled the trigger.

In the first part of the season up to the end of 2023, Onana had the fourth-largest difference between his goals conceded (excluding own goals) and his xGOT. This demonstrates that, while he might have looked shaky in his early months, compared to a league-average goalkeeper, he prevented United from conceding at least an extra three goals.

Since the turn of the year, he has looked more secure but is actually performing closer to the league average considering the quality and number of shots he has faced.

His eight successful high claims in Sunday’s Manchester derby was more than any goalkeeper has managed in a single game in the Premier League all season. De Gea made 14 across his last league campaign at the club.

It wasn’t a one-off, either. Onana has faced more crosses than any other goalkeeper in the league and is one of the best performers in this area of the game.

“He has followed a similar path to David and even Peter Schmeichel,” Eric Steele, United’s long-time United goalkeeping coach under Ferguson, tells The Athletic. “A difficult first few months, but you have to understand why. Onana came from Italy where the pace and tempo are different.

“There’s no league in the world where you have the variation in games that you get in the Premier League and it catches new goalkeepers out. You play against a possession team one week — Liverpool, Brighton, Villa or Manchester City — and then you have counter-attacking teams and sides mixing it up far more than you see in Serie A. You’re playing with fans right on top of you in full stadiums that hold 74,000 or 11,000. There are so many variables to get used to and the fans are looking for big saves, which is what you want when you’ve paid so much for a goalkeeper.”

Every mistake will get far more scrutiny than at any club Onana has played at. He was stung after his first appearance at Old Trafford in a friendly against Lens and memes circulated of him being lobbed from a distance. The appetite to focus on negatives with United is massive and Steele, the man who identified De Gea for Ferguson, has turned down numerous media approaches to talk about Onana until now.

“The main criticism early on was that goals were going in that ‘he’ll be disappointed with’,” says Steele diplomatically.

“A back four changing all the time because of injuries hasn’t helped, which means he’s doing more work than he might have expected. David was playing behind Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra every week and they were champions.”

United have used 24 different defensive combinations so far this season and the Diogo Dalot–Raphael Varane–Jonny Evans–Victor Lindelof combination from the recent derby was the first time they had started together.

“Even when you come into a club where the manager knows you can play the way he wants you to play, it’s going to take time,” says Steele.

“Early in the season, Andre would end up on his backside after a one-on-one. He plays the high line and has to backtrack (to protect his goal when United are retreating), but if you backtrack you have to make sure you’re balanced (and don’t retreat too far into your own net). Other goals went past him only a yard either side of him.”

If Galatasaray was the low point, Newcastle away a week later was one turning point — just as Chelsea away was for De Gea six months into his time at United. The record books will show Newcastle won (it was a stinking performance from the visitors) and Onana was serenaded by chants of ‘dodgy keeper’. However, he made an important save from an early Miguel Almiron shot and after the game, he told friends he needed to be himself, to play without fear. He said he was going to go for it and prove who he was.

December, with its five defeats, was mostly awful for all at Manchester United but contained another turning point for the goalkeeper. Onana kept a clean sheet in a draw at Liverpool, standing tall in the face of 34 shots. Fortunes improved further at the start of this year.

“This year has started well for him, so well done to him for overcoming so much adversity,” says Steele. “He’s made some top saves. And there have been a few occasions where you are watching thinking, ‘Wow, goal’. Then you see this big hand come out. His save against Erling Haaland in the Old Trafford derby was like that. Goalkeepers talk about efficiency and movement. He’s now moving his feet quicker, he’s better balanced.”

It wasn’t just in games that Onana struggled. He took time to adjust to the pace of training, but United felt this would happen since it is common with all players who have yet to play Premier League football. That was a key reason United wanted to sign him as early as possible in the transfer window, though Inter had the small matter of reaching the Champions League final, played at the start of June and did not want to talk about selling their goalkeeper at that stage.

Discussions began almost immediately after. United have a good and long-standing relationship with Inter, but the Italians wanted £70million ($89m), a figure United were never going to entertain. Negotiations lasted a month and the sale price came down to £43.8m, with a potential £3.4m in add-ons. Onana agreed personal terms on July 16 and signed four days later in time to join up with his team-mates in New Jersey and start playing pre-season games.

When Ten Hag first enquired about Onana’s openness to reuniting with his former Ajax manager in England, the goalkeeper was determined to make the deal happen. He felt the United train might only pass him once in his life and he was delighted once the move was complete.

Onana considers his new club as one of the three biggest in the world, along with Real Madrid and Barcelona, who were his first team in Europe. It took time for him to adjust to the additional scrutiny that comes with being the first-choice goalkeeper for such a club. After playing behind a deeper back three at Inter, with attacking outlets such as Denzel Dumfries at wing-back to pass to, he would need time to readjust to playing behind a back four at United.

Ten Hag came into 2023-24 hoping to play with a higher defensive line than last season, asking Onana to operate as a sweeper as he had done during their time at Ajax. Injuries to Martinez and others prompted a change in that plan.

Compare Onana’s open-play touches from the start of the season until Christmas in the Premier League to his open-play touches in 2024.

Onana is somewhere between the alert and confident form he showed for Inter and the proactive, aggressive style he displayed for Ajax. He makes up for what he lacks in the strong hands and reflex saves De Gea offered in his peak years with his increased involvement in team build-up. Onana is a good, rather than great, shot-stopper.

In the early section of the season, he appeared nervous when facing long-range efforts, often making contact with the lower part of his palm or wrist when making saves. Knowledgeable critics have pointed out weaknesses in his footwork when he tries to get across to shots aimed in the corner. United’s home defeat against Galatasaray led to his aptitude in one-on-one situations being questioned after he went to ground quickly when facing Mauro Icardi. The Argentine striker would chip him to get the game’s winning goal.

A look at his shot-saving maps in the Premier League offers another example of performance vs perception. Onana was statistically one of the best shot-stoppers in the league up until Christmas. However, he was prone to lapses in concentration that provoked jitters in fans.

Since the turn of the year, there have been fewer of those jittery moments. Onana also makes fewer large leaps across his goal as his footwork has become more confident.

He is not the passing metronome many United fans expected before his arrival. Part of that is due to persistent injuries to Martinez and Luke Shaw, limiting the number of press-resistant players Onana can make shorter passes to. As a result, he often looks to pass long, contributing to the team’s transitional moments.

Onana’s long passing data between the start of the season and Christmas shows a goalkeeper who is solid if sometimes erratic when finding his targets.

Since 2024 began, he has been more measured, with the majority of his most successful passes aimed down the left.

Unlike some other players’ families who move to Manchester for the first time, the Onana’s wife and children have settled quickly and have been happy living in Hale at the house they rent from Alexis Sanchez. Having studied in Boston, where she gained a PhD, his wife, Melanie, speaks perfect English. Andre’s three children (two boys, one girl) speak English, while the goalkeeper is fluent in Spanish, French, Italian, and Ewondo, a regional language from Cameroon. His English is improving and he wants to stay at United for a long time.

Onana feels more confident and his team-mates’ increasing faith in him helps. He is not yet a leader in the United dressing room, but he was hugely influential at Inter. He trains well, often staying for an hour or two after training and speaking about football. His life in Manchester is quiet, he rarely goes out and is happy at home — but he did, eventually, go to the Ivory Coast for the Africa Cup of Nations.

To the outsider, Onana’s participation at AFCON looked a confused mess. After Qatar 2022, he was hurting having left the Cameroon camp before their final group-stage game following a disagreement with manager Rigobert Song. Onana issued a statement saying he was not going to play any more internationals. He did this because he thought he was going to be told not to come back.

The Cameroonian government then made a push for him to play for the national team in AFCON. After negotiations between club and country, Onana arrived later than the rest of the squad after staying in England to be available for United’s game against Tottenham on January 14. He then had an argument with Cameroon Football Federation president Samuel Eto’o, played one game and that was it. He returned to England and believes he will not play for Cameroon again while Eto’o is in charge.

Despite this, the tournament may have helped him at Old Trafford.

“We’ve seen an upturn since he came back from AFCON,” says Steele. “We know what he’s got in possession, the range of passing making him a modern goalkeeper like Ederson and Alisson. You’ll see him comfortable when he’s 40 yards from goal. The layman might think, ‘Why is he so far out?’, but it’s the modern way and he’s confident enough to do it very well.”

And he is doing well in a team that hasn’t performed to the expected levels since he joined.

(Top photo: Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)