Ruben Amorim said he is “really confident” in André Onana despite Manchester United’s No 1 making errors that handed Lyon both their goals in the first leg of Thursday’s Europa League quarter-final.
Onana’s first mistake allowed Thiago Almada’s 25th-minute free-kick to bounce in. The second, in the last moments of added time, featured a weak push straight to Rayan Cherki, who equalised. At that point, United were leading through Joshua Zirkzee’s 87th-minute header, which followed Leny Yoro’s equaliser.
Amorim was asked what he will say to Onana. “Nothing,” said the head coach. “We have training, go with [Jorge] Vital [goalkeeping coach] and we deal with that – really natural. That can happen with any player. There’s nothing I can say to André in this moment that will help. The most important thing is to be natural and then, when the time comes, I will choose the best XI to play. But I’m really confident in André.
“It can happen, if you play football, you play a lot of games, you can make mistakes. If you look at the season, I make more mistakes than them during these last games and these last months.”
Onana’s mistakes came after he and Nemanja Matic had a pre-game spat. The former United midfielder had branded Onana one of United’s worst-ever keepers, and the Cameroonian replied that he had won trophies at the club – unlike Matic.
Amorim was asked if this might have distracted Onana during the match. “I don’t know, that can happen,” he said. “The best thing is to look at the goals, all the actions that André had in the game, talk with Vital – this is the best way to help any player, it’s to focus on the game, what happened, what we need to improve and then put the player in. I didn’t see him [after the game], to be honest with you. I use these minutes to try to calm down, to come here to say the right things.
“It’s normal. I felt the dressing room really quiet, we draw away in Europe, that is always hard, but the team is suffering, we need to change that.”The tie is poised before Thursday’s second leg at Old Trafford. “The other thing is we have one more game to change everything and that should be our focus,” Amorim said.