‘You can’t defend him’ – Jamie Redknapp blasts Manchester United star after Nottingham Forest defeat
'That is fundamentally really bad.'
Jamie Redknapp says you simply ‘can’t defend’ Andre Onana after his piece of ‘fundamentally really bad goalkeeping’ in Manchester United’s 3-2 defeat to Nottingham Forest.
Rasmus Hojlund slotted home from close range to cancel out Nikola Milenkovic’s second-minute header but Forest retook the lead after a pair of second-half goals from Morgan Gibbs-White and Chris Wood to silence Old Trafford.
And while Bruno Fernandes reduced the deficit just past the hour-mark, the visitors held firm to pick up their seventh win of the Premier League campaign.
It was a second successive loss for Ruben Amorim’s United, meanwhile, who travel to champions Manchester City next weekend after a midweek Europa League clash with Viktoria Plzen.
The Red Devils were, at times, their own worst enemy at the Theatre of Dreams, with Forest capitalising on several lapses and blunders to secure a deserved victory away from home.
Perhaps the most notable mistake came from United goalkeeper Onana, who was completely wrong-footed by Gibbs-White’s driven strike from outside the box shortly after half-time.
‘You can’t defend him [Onana] there,’ former Liverpool, Tottenham and England midfielder Redknapp said as United slipped to 13th – the club’s lowest ever position at this stage of a Premier League season.
‘He’s falling backwards, his balance is wrong, he’s got his weight on his heels…
‘Sometimes it’s hard for us as players to analyse because I never played in goal, it didn’t even do it in training. I just didn’t want to do it.
‘But that is fundamentally really bad goalkeeping. He knows it, he doesn’t need us to tell him on TV.’
Ex-United defender Phil Jones argued that Onana’s mistake was a blot on an otherwise ‘terrific’ season.
‘He will be disappointed with that,’ Jones said.
‘When we watch it back, it’s not a great watch. I’d like to give him a bit of credit and say the ball is deviating but it’s hardly one of the knuckle balls. He should be saving it.
‘I think what you would say is that he’s made a mistake there but he’s been terrific so far this season.’
Facing the media after United’s setback, Amorim threw his support behind Onana and backed his side to ‘turn around’ their fortunes over the coming weeks and months.
On Onana’s costly blunder, the Portuguese told reporters: ‘He saved us a lot of times.
‘We have to find a way to turn it around and score two goals to help our keeper for the way he, for example, saved us at Ipswich.
‘We already knew it would be a long journey but we want to win. It’s a massive job. We need to improve on a lot of things.
‘I had this and worse at Sporting at the beginning. Manchester United is bigger because of the attention but the feeling for me is the same.
‘It happens in a lot of squads, but you need to keep doing the same things and it will turn around.’
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