Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim defended under-fire goalkeeper Andre Onana following the Cameroonian’s costly mistakes in his side’s 2-2 draw at Olympique Lyonnais in their UEFA Europa League quarter-final first leg on Thursday.
Onana allowed Thiago Almada’s free-kick to squirm past him in the Groupama Stadium and was also at fault for Rayan Cherki’s last-gasp equaliser that denied United victory.
Since the start of last season, no English Premier League club’s goalkeeper has made more errors leading to goals being conceded in all competitions than Onana.
“It can happen, if you play football, you play a lot of games, you can make mistakes,” Amorim said in his post-match interview.
“If you look at the season, I make more mistakes than them during these last games and these last months.
“The other thing is we have one more game to change everything and that should be our focus.
“The best thing is to look at the goals, all the actions that Andre had in the game, this is the best way to help any player, it’s to focus on the game, what happened, what we need to improve.”
United nonetheless remain unbeaten in this season’s Europa League — the only side to do so this term — after goals from Leny Yoro and Joshua Zirkzee put them on course for a potential victory.
The team, who are 13th in the English Premier League standings, still go into next week’s second leg in Manchester as favourites to book a spot in the last four.
“It was an entertaining game,” Amorim added. “We had some difficulty in the first half trying to press, because Lyon played in a different way. Then, in the middle of the first half and especially the second, we controlled the game.
“The second leg will be a different game. At home, our fans want us to press all the time.”
Reuters
