‘He’s got no arms’ – Pundit blasts Onana for failing to do simple job for Man Utd

Ciaran McCarthy

08 Oct 2023 3:41 PM

Andre Onana puts his hands on his hips during a Premier League match.

Jamie O’Hara stated Andre Onana has “got no arms” after he conceded a goal against Brentford, and asked “who cares” that he’s got defenders missing as he isn’t doing his own job.

United thought that they had upgraded their goalkeeper over the summer. While David de Gea won the Premier League golden glove last season, he also made a fair few mistakes.

As such, United opted to sign a new goalkeeper, landing on Onana, and the Spaniard left the club. Onana seemed to be a good choice, having kept eight clean sheets in 13 Champions League games on the way to the final for Inter Milan last season.

However, he and his defence have already let in 12 goals in eight Premier League games for United this term, and he’s been at fault for some of those.

The most recent example was in the 2-1 win over Bournemouth, when Onana got a hand to a tame Mathias Jensen effort on the floor and nowhere near the corner, but he wasn’t able to stop it from going in.

That looked like it had lost United the game until Scott McTominay popped up with a stoppage-time brace to save Onana’s blushes.

Darren Ambrose believes that while Onana has been poor, it’s not fair to blame him as a lot of United’s main defensive assets are currently unavailable.

“The consistency of the defensive line in front of him has not been there, they’ve lost their best one-on-one defender in Wan-Bissaka; Luke Shaw, Martinez, Varane, he’s got no consistency in front of him,” Ambrose said on Sky Sports.

“Yes the goals are his fault, but I think you judge him on when he’s got his best back four in front of him.”

O’Hara was much less sensitive with his assessment, stating it shouldn’t matter who is in front of Onana, he simply isn’t doing his job.

“Come on, who cares? He’s a keeper, keep the ball out the net, it’s your job. No matter if you’ve got a dog in front of you,” he said.

“He’s passing the ball to the centre forward last week, now he’s got no arms.”

While Ambrose has a valid point that Onana is under the cosh more without his best defenders in front of him, the goalkeeper should be saving efforts such as that against Brentford, which was solely his mistake.

Manchester United Andre Onana