Despite his appalling performance against Galatasaray in the middle of the week, Erik ten Hag has named Manchester United goalkeeper Andre Onana the “second-best goalkeeper in the Premier League based on stats.”
According to Football 365, Onana came under fire on Wednesday after the Red Devils twice let a two-goal lead slip away against the Turkish team, failing to stop two free kicks from Hakim Ziyech.
The legendary Paul Scholes of Manchester United and a few other detractors felt he ought to have done better for Galatasaray’s third goal, and some called for his replacement during the winter transfer window.
Ten Hag was eager to highlight Onana’s stats as the joint second-best goalkeeper in the Premier League during his pre-match press conference on Friday. Onana only joined from Inter Milan in the summer.
Man Utd boss Ten Hag told reporters: “If you analyse it well then you see he is the second-best goalkeeper in the Premier League based on stats, his expected preventing goals is second-best in the Premier League.
“He’s doing well but he knows that in the Champions League he has made some mistakes but all over in the first five months he has done well.”
On Onana, Ten Hag added: “You know also. Because you have seen how he is reacting on a bad performance like in Munich at Burnley he was outstanding. He is a strong character, he is a personality and he will deal with it.”
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Asked whether he was frustrated with the result against Galatasaray, Ten Hag replied: “You say it very good. How good we play. On Wednesday, we played very good, also in Copenhagen.
“Even in Bayern Munich we played very good. But we have to do some things better. Eliminate individual errors, transition but we can sort this out and I would be more concerned if we didn’t play well.”
After shining in the Red Devils’ recent victory over Everton, Kobbie Mainoo was left out of the starting lineup for the match against Galatasaray.
Ten Hag, though, maintains that it was only done to oversee his Manchester United team, and the young player might play again on Saturday when they take on Newcastle United.
On Mainoo, Ten Hag said: “If he’s ready or not, he showed on Sunday he was ready and then we have to manage three games in six days to get the best results of all the games, we have more than 11 players, we have good options there. Sofyan showed he was playing a good game.
“We have to manage the load of the players and it’s about freshness as well.”
Asked what he likes about Mainoo, Ten Hag replied: “His scanning, it looks like he always has time because he is scanning, he is running free, he is scanning to see the options and make the right decisions. Can delay, can speed up, he makes the right decisions.”
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