Andre Onana is the Premier League’s most important goalkeeper and here’s the proof

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Manchester United goalkeeper Andre Onana has been heavily criticised this season, but he’s now proven to be having a strong season.

This season has been the first in a decade for Manchester United which hasn’t comprised of David de Gea in goal. This meant Andre Onana faced the task of replacing a club legend and while he’s had turbulent moments, he’s on the main been pretty solid.

Despite some serious howlers, the new Old Trafford goalkeeper has been seriously unfairly treated with a narrative ongoing that he’s been a shambolic keeper this campaign.

This isn’t the case and now it’s been proven that he’s actually the Premier League’s most important keeper and United are blessed to have him.

Andre Onana is the Premier League’s most important goalkeeper

Onana has been in top form for large periods this season and now WhoScored has proven that as they shared a list of the league’s biggest overperformers of Expected Goals Against (xGA).

This has shown that United are actually top of the pile and have avoided a whopping 9.30 goals which would’ve been expected to go in with Onana playing a massive role in this.

Of these, according to FotMob, Onana has prevented 3.47 goals (3rd in the league) which is better than 91% of his positional peers. Meanwhile, he has a save percentage of 72.5% which has him as the third in the league as well.

He is also second place in the Golden Glove race with seven clean sheets in a United shirt this Premier League campaign.

Andre Onana has been treated really unfairly this season

While nobody denies Onana has had some struggles in goal this season – with the Champions League being a rough group of games – but in large he’s been very impressive considering how unsettled the defence has been.

With a centre-half partnership ahead of his which he’s never really got the chance to gel with thanks to injuries to practically every defender United have at one point or another, most recently being Lisandro Martinez.

This does heighten the need to sign a couple of centre-backs this summer in order to strengthen the position and allow some relationships to be built across the back-line without constant chopping and changing.

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