Liverpool can potentially summon the tiniest modicum of sympathy for Manchester United. After all, it has had an ostensibly-retired Cameroon player of its own on the books since 2016, and there have been occasions when an unexpected change of heart from Joël Matip would have left Jürgen Klopp scrambling.
Even so, there’s an element of farce about the drama that has played out with André Onana. Per the Mirror, he boarded a private jet immediately after Manchester United’s 2-2 draw with Tottenham, aiming to at least make the bench for Cameroon’s AFCON opener less than 24 hours later.
Outlets such as Sport Bible have since claimed those plans have been thwarted, with the private jet halted due to bad weather and Onana forced to try and make the last leg of the journey by car. But regardless of the truth of that claim, Liverpool fans will be looking at the situation with some bemusement.
The desire for Onana to stay at Old Trafford as long as possible has come from both sides. The goalkeeper himself is anxious not to lose his place, while Cameroon has reportedly been understanding of the fact that Manchester United had not anticipated any AFCON issues when making the signing.
Ironically, the fact Manchester United has been so keen to facilitate Onana’s late departure suggests that he had nothing to worry about in terms of his status as the number one. He might have endured a testing start to life in the Premier League, but Erik ten Hag’s apparent reluctance to turn to summer signing Altay Bayındır speaks volumes.
Indeed, the way the club has pulled out all of the stops to keep Onana for an extra match or two suggests he has effectively become a key player at Manchester United. For Liverpool, who is losing the far better player to AFCON in Mohamed Salah, the contrast is marked.
While Ten Hag can seemingly hardly bear the thought of coping without a goalkeeper who has made numerous high-profile errors already in his short stint at the club, Liverpool and Klopp have gone about their business without Salah with minimal fuss. He left at the allotted time, and the Reds have recorded back-to-back wins so far in his absence, including an away triumph at Arsenal.
Klopp has implicit faith in his squad to step up, relying on the likes of Diogo Jota, Luis Díaz, Darwin Núñez and Cody Gakpo to deliver. Admittedly, depth in attack is easier to come by than depth in goal — but it would be much the same story if Alisson were missing, with Liverpool having often trusted Caoimhín Kelleher in recent years.
To add to the comedy of it all, Onana did not exactly make a telling contribution against Spurs — at least not in a positive sense. Per FBref, he faced 1.1 post-shot expected goals, meaning he conceded almost a full extra goal more than would be expected of the average goalkeeper facing those shots on target.
Ten Hag infamously defended Onana earlier in the season by pointing to the fact he was statistically among the best in the league when it comes to saves over and above the post-shot xG model. That is no longer true, with the Cameroonian ninth in the division both on a raw and per-90 basis. Alisson, unsurprisingly, leads him on both counts.
How worried is Manchester United about Bayındır if it is this keen to hang on to a statistically average goalkeeper, who the eye test will tell you is prone to catastrophic mistakes? For a team that has spent so much money over such a sustained period, the lack of faith in the existing squad is staggering.
So while Liverpool has the rawest end of the deal in the Premier League by having to lose Salah for a month or so, its response to the AFCON issue shows just how far ahead of Manchester United it is. Ten Hag is more worried about coping without Onana than Klopp is about managing the absence of one of the club’s best players of all time — it doesn’t take a genius to establish which squad is in ruder health. Delayed private jet or not, the situation is a bit of a shambles.
