Andre Onana has had a shaky start to his career at Manchester United, to say the least.
The Cameroonian shot-stopper was brought in from Inter Milan in the summer for an initial £43m. He had big shoes to fill.
He took the place of club legend David de Gea after he was shunned from the club by Erik ten Hag after just one season under the Dutchman’s reign.
So far he hasn’t exactly looked like the most competent of replacements, nevertheless, he’s shown glimpses of just what he’s capable of. He’ll get there. Although some pundits severely disagree.
United should have seen the ‘red flag’ with Onana, says pundit
Speaking via ESPN’s official YouTube channel, American pundit Scott Van Pelt assessed a ‘red flag’ United should have seen coming with Onana.
“Be a goalkeeper first,” he begins. “Whenever I hear a coach or a sporting director or something and the first thing they say about a goalkeeper is how good they are with their feet.
“That to me is a massive red flag. I need my goalkeeper to stop balls from going in the back of the net first.”
He then went on to explain how he understood Ten Hag’s ideologies of wanting to redefine United’s style of play – but also at what cost.
“I get the idea that you’re saying we want to change the way we play and for as great of a servant David de Gea was, this isn’t one of his strengths,” Van Pelt went on.
“But what you can’t do is take away all the strengths that De Gea had and then just have someone that can pass out of the back.”
Onana hasn’t shown what he’s capable of yet
We somewhat agree with this, but we also don’t think Onana has shown what he’s capable of in terms of shot-stopping.
There’s a huge reason he’s a goalkeeper in the first place, his saving abilities do come first. We think people have gotten a little lost in this idea that he was only brought in to ‘pass the ball’.
His fine goalkeeping ability saved Inter Milan countless times and people are forgetting this.
We think he will come good. The constant media scrutiny can’t be helping.
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