Andre Onana’s difficult start to life at Manchester United has taken Heurelho Gomes by surprise with the former Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper expecting better from the Premier League newbie.
To say it’s been a mixed few months for Andre Onana at Old Trafford would be an understatement.
From the highs of that Copenhagen penalty save and eye-catching performances against the likes of Everton and Liverpool to the lows of high-profile blunders against Bayern Munich, Brentford and more.
The £43 million signing from Inter Milan has been open about his desire to perform far better between the sticks – telling Sky Sports that he has been less than ‘happy’ with his return thus far – and Gomes agrees that improvements must be made if Onana is to bounce back from a tough start to become a Manchester United icon, a la David de Gea and Peter Schmeichel.
Andre Onana dividing opinion at Manchester United
“Yeah (I am surprised with Onana’s performances), because he performed well in the Champions League. To be honest, I’m surprised because of his quality,” Gomes, who spent 12 years in England with Spurs and Watford, tells talkSPORT (3 January, 12pm).
“To come to England as a goalkeeper is not easy. It is a different thing
“He is good enough (for Man United). But he needs to perform the way he was performing at Inter Milan.”
Gomes, who himself begun life in the UK with a string of errors, believes that Onana’s rather unorthodox approach to goalkeeping – often using his forearm rather than his palms to parry goal-bound efforts – is something we probably picked up as a youngster.
“His style is different,” Gomes adds. “But the basics when you make a save… if you don’t adjust in the right time, it’s going to be very difficult to change that.
“The way he dives, the way he makes a save, this is something that can reflect on his past. It can be (something) the goalkeeping coach has told him to do when he was young.”
Improvements required
With six Onana is still joint top of the clean sheets table, level with Alisson Becker of Liverpool, Nick Pope of Newcastle United and Jordan Pickford of Everton.
What’s more, according to FBRef, Onana has saved nearly three more shots than he would have been expected to since moving to the Premier League, his ‘Expected Saves’ average of 2.9 among the division’s top six.
Clearly, the building blocks of a potentially top-class goalkeeper are there. But, as De Gea discovered during a difficult debut season at United too, fine reflex stops do not generate quite as much attention as those which squirm through your fingers.
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