Andre Onana produced his finest Manchester United display in the 1-0 Champions League victory over Copenhagen with the goalkeeper pulling off an ‘incredible save’ long before his dramatic penalty stop.
It may be Andre Onana’s injury-time heroics which adorn the back pages this morning – the £47 million summer signing leaping to his left to claw away a Jordan Larsson penalty with the final act of the game at Old Trafford – but if that was his most important save of the evening, it certainly wasn’t his best.
That honour goes, instead, to the superb denial of a long-range Copenhagen screamer just after the interval, Onana’s wrists carved out of marble as he deflected a fierce shot just past the post.
Andre Onana is Manchester United’s UCL hero
“That’s an incredible save,” Robbie Savage, TNT Sports pundit and one-time Manchester United trainee, said during Tuesday’s coverage (24 October, 8pm).
“A brilliant save, (with) a strong right hand. What a save.”
After a traumatic start to life in Manchester – high-profile errors against Nottingham Forest, Bayern Munich and Brentford giving his reputation a pummelling – Onana appears to have turned a corner.
He stepped up against a fired-up Sheffield United on Saturday, and the wild celebrations which accompanied his hero moment against Copenhagen could be the fuel which lights a fire under his Manchester United career.
‘Just doing my job’
“I was just doing my job, being calm, not under pressure and making myself big, waiting as long as possible and making the save,” Onana, who now has eight penalty saves in his career, tells the Man United website.
“It was an important victory for us. We had to win this game if we wanted to continue this competition. We are Manchester United, and we have a lot of ambition. A lot of expectation.
“We had to win this game. We cannot go out after the first three games already, we are too big to go out so soon as possible. We have to fight and work hard.”
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