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How will Andre Onana transform Manchester United's fortunes?
Manchester City and Pep Guardiola finally clinched a long awaited success in the Champions League last season when they lifted the holy grail against Simone Inzaghi's Inter.
Amidst all the analysis and talk that followed from the final, there was one individual performance from Inter's camp whose display on the pitch stood out above the rest.
Goalkeeper Andre Onana.
Now over in Manchester, there was a vacant number one spot on the red side of the city after David de Gea announcing his exit from the club, following the expiry of his contract.
Inter and Manchester United have concluded a deal for the player, with another former Ajax man set for a reunion with Erik ten Hag at Old Trafford.
What can be expected?
David de Gea has been United's number one for close to a decade now.
In that time, United's rivals have strengthened significantly between the posts and now Manchester City and Liverpool have two of the best goalkeepers in the world in Ederson and Alisson.
De Gea's shot-stopping ability has been a saviour for United over the years, with his performances during the 17/18 season being a particular highlight of his time at Old Trafford.
In these ten years, however, the demands of modern goalkeepers and how teams use goalkeepers has changed drastically.
Goalkeepers have to be good with the ball at their feet, be able to actively contribute in build-up and also relieve pressure from opposition attackers trying to unsettle defenders and cause mistakes.
These are the present day requirements at the elite level, aside from being good in the traditional sense.
De Gea fits the bill of the latter.
Statistical overview
During various points in his United career, De Gea's ability - or lack thereof - has been a problem for the team.
High-profile errors have marred his time at the club, with each mistake further underlining the costs of United's failure to bring in competition of the necessary style and profile to provide competition to De Gea.
Onana is exactly the kind of keeper that can have a transformative effect on United's fortunes at the back. Let's take a glance at the numbers first.
De Gea kept 17 clean sheets in the Premier League last season and in doing so, managed to claim the Golden Glove award. Onana on the other hand, kept eight clean sheets in Serie A in 24 starts.
Looking as Post Shot Expected Goals (PSxG), a metric by Opta that measures the likelihood of a keeper making a save, the differential between PSxG and goals conceded for both keepers isn’t drastic, suggesting no noticeable under/over performance in terms of shot-stopping.
And in Onana’s case specifically, his historical underlying figures even from his time at Ajax don’t suggest any unsustainable overperformance.
This points to the fact that the Cameroonian is probably good enough to be a shot-stopper at the Premier League level.
Onana double save 🙅🙅#UCL pic.twitter.com/1QZ8xzIwlr
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) July 7, 2023
Now Onana is famous for his ability with the ball and his willingness to take responsibility in tight situation and alleviate his fellow defenders from high-pressure situations.
Again, looking at simple metrics like pass receptions or even touches per 90 tell us a lot.
Onana averaged the second-highest number of receptions on a per 90 basis, across Europe’s Top Five leagues (27.38) whereas in terms of overall touches per 90, he was ninth with 44.63 touches per 90, according to Opta.
The passing networks of both sides from last season show a clear difference in interaction between the keepers and centre-backs, Onana engages far more than De Gea.
This tells us that Onana is brave and enjoys having the ball at his feet, which is in stark contrast to De Gea who has famously struggled to make the right decisions in build-up when on the ball and has more often than not always played it to long, eventually leading to lost possession.
So the numbers tell us that Onana likes to receive the ball and get a lot of touches. But what does that really tell us about his ability and quality of distribution and passing?
Let’s look at that next.
World-class ability to play out of the back
The Champions League final was a superb showing from Onana, who was able to boast the range of his skillset as a keeper in terms of shot-stopping as well as ball distribution.
Early on in the game, his composure in possession under pressure is evident. With City attackers pressing down on him, he turned away from Bernardo Silva and found a clipped pass to Denzel Dumfries which started an attacking sequence for Inter.
These clipped passes are a staple of Onana’s passes, and this is particularly evident when you look at his passing radar compared to De Gea’s, who struggles to do similar.
Next, looking at his network of passes made from the 22/23 season for Inter shows us just how often Onana is able to not only circulate the ball between the centre backs but also able to access midfield through his line-breaking lofting passes.
Looking at Inzaghi’s Inter playing out of the back, it almost seems as though Onana is a fourth centre-back because of how involved he is in the first-phase of build-up.
Another situation here where the backline has pushed back deeper to be in line with him, with the idea being to invite City pressure and then play through that to generate transition opportunities which Inter thrive upon.
One thing Onana likes to do in these situations is bait pressure from attackers, he will take an extra second or two on the ball to just stand still before picking the perfect pass to play around the press.
This is something we have seen from Roberto de Zerbi’s Brighton, who have found a great deal of success playing this way.
Playing under pressure
Playing out of the back is something that Ten Hag’s United struggled with, last season.
Often at times, United's defenders were left frustrated with De Gea’s inability to pick out passes to quell opposition pressure or even play past the first line of the press.
This is a problem that Onana is likely to solve - and he is quite good at solving too.
Another example from the final against City comes later on in the contest.
Erling Haaland is bearing down on Onana and the Cameroonian’s composure on the ball enables him to find Nicolo Barella in front of him, who is able to carry and kick start another Inter attack.
These simple yet incredibly difficult actions pay off over the longer term during the season and if United’s plans are to build on the positive foundations of Ten Hag’s first season, then Onana will be crucial to those.
The Cameroonian will be transformational in more ways than one and will fix a problem at United that has needed correcting for quite some time.
