Andre Onana: A Hidden Gem in Amsterdam
Image: Femke Kruize
By: Kees van Hemmen
Onana, now 23, has been the first-choice keeper for Ajax since the 2016-17 club season, and for the length of that time he’s been a reliable presence between the sticks for the Eredivisie leaders. However, starting last season, Onana elevated his play to truly world class heights.
Publicly available xG2 or post-shot xG data is essentially non-existent for the Dutch Eredivisie, unfortunately. However, what we can look at are Onana’s Champions League numbers. And boy are they something to look at.
As you can see here, Onana has existed in a class of his own in Europe’s premier club competition for more than a year now. In terms of shot stopping, he has been eclipsed only by Neto. However, Neto has played only five games in the CL over the last two years to Onana’s eighteen. In those games he’s been worth well over half an expected goal saved per game (for an explanation of Post Shot xG +/- I direct you here). For lack of a better phrasing, that’s completely nuts. If Onana were to replicate that form over a full league season (18 games is roughly half of one) it would be the undisputed best shot stopping season that fbref has on record. The only remotely comparable performance would be that of Levante’s Aitor Fernandez (who deserves an article of his own) during the current club campaign, but even he is saving more than one-tenth of an expected goal less per game. Over a full season the difference amounts to between 4 and 5 goals. That’s a non trivial gap. Now, there are flaws in Post-Shot xG in terms of predictiveness, as it only stabilizes over the course of a few seasons. However, what Onana’s shown thus far is so overwhelming, and in a relatively large enough sample, that it's difficult to imagine he would be anything less than an above average shot stopper for any major European side.
Shot stopping may be Onana’s most overwhelming strength, but it certainly isn’t his only one. The graphic above also illustrates how effective André is when it comes to cross-claiming. There are different camps when it comes to the value of this skill, and there are certainly risks that come with being as aggressive as Onana is, but André more than gets away with it. With the game increasingly moving towards ball playing center backs at the expense of aerial prowess, and crossing also seemingly back in vogue due to high volume aerial distributors like Trent Alexander-Arnold and Kevin De Bruyne, minimizing the number of shots on goal from airborne box entries is more valuable than it’s been in years. Onana claims crosses at a relatively high rate, and thanks to elite athleticism and good timing he is almost certainly a net positive in this regard.
Something Ajax players are renowned for is their skill on the ball, and André Onana, having played not only for Ajax, but also Barcelona’s academy, is no exception. Ajax’s aggressive high line means Onana often doesn’t face a high number of shots, especially against weaker opponents. What it does mean, however, is he is often tasked with a lot of on ball work, whether that be in terms of short passing as an outlet in buildup or as a pressure release down the field when Ajax’s press is broken.
The numbers shown above don’t, at first glance, appear to reflect well on Onana. He’s middling in terms of passes attempted per game, and he actually profiles as quite poor in terms of long-distance distribution. The truth is a little more complicated, however. Ajax is not a long ball side. Their entire team is generally very short in stature (their go-to starting XI in the Champions League last season had only one outfield player, center back Matthijs De Ligt, who was over 6’0” [1.83M]), and their style of play is designed to create clusters in attack so as to facilitate short passing. This, paired with the fact that their defense isn’t meant to operate out of a low block, combines to create an atmosphere where Onana only launches the ball to release pressure, rather than spring an attack. These factors combine to create an environment where the numbers probably do not accurately represent Onana’s on the ball ability. As you can see below, Ajax’s manager Erik Ten Hag clearly has enough faith in Onana’s distribution to use him as a passing outlet in the open field.
Overloading 1st line build up by using the 11th player pic.twitter.com/IDjYztisi4
— LY YEUNG (@LyYeung_) February 27, 2020
To be clear, I do not mean to say, "Onana is elite with the ball at his feet, no matter what the numbers say!" Instead I point only to the fact that these metrics reflect particularly poorly upon him, and there are a variety of complicating factors that mean a little context is in order. Based on his role in this Ajax team, I am very comfortable saying he would prove to be, at worst, league average when it comes to passing ability as a Premier League goalkeeper.
For some more numbers to crunch I turn to a StatsBomb radar that I have admittedly cannibalized from another excellent article on Onana (which you can find here).
I’ve already touched upon Onana’s shot stopping here, so what I actually want to highlight from André’s 2018-19 Champions League radar is his positioning error. Or, to be more specific, his lack thereof. His average positioning error of 1.51 is elite. For reference, David De Gea in his superhuman 2017-18 season had a positioning error of 1.53. For lack of a better phrasing, our friend Andre knows where to stand. How influential this is when it comes to keeping the ball out of the net hasn’t been examined too intensively, at least publicly. The most we can say is that it's certainly better than the alternative.
Looping back around, this radar also has some more interesting insights into Onana’s passing ability. Both “Pass into Danger percentage” and “Positive Outcome Contributions” are distribution related metrics, and what Onana’s values tell us conveniently corroborates my theory on how his role in Ajax’s system affects some of his other numbers. Pass into danger percentage measures how frequently Onana passed to another player who was under pressure upon receiving this pass. Onana’s percentage indicates that he passed into pressure with great frequency in the CL last season. This is generally a bad thing, but when we consider that Ajax’s attack was predicated on drawing in the press (often by abusing Frenkie De Jong’s dribbling ability on brutally underprepared forwards) and then breaking it with incisive vertical passing, Onana gets a bit of an out. Passing to Frenkie De Jong under pressure was something Ajax wanted to do. And this is reflected in the other metric I highlighted, Onana’s Positive Outcome Contributions. Positive Outcome Contributions gets explained in depth here, but essentially it is any positive attacking outcome (shot, free kick, corner, etc.) that happens within 20 seconds of the goalkeeper touching the ball. And this is the first place we see Onana truly shine with his boots, largely, I suspect, as a function of his willingness to pass into pressure. His risk taking in passing out of the back meant when Ajax did break the press, he played a major role.
Statistically speaking, André Onana has been a dominant goalkeeper in the most competitive tournament in world football for two years. The fact that he is still playing in the seventh ranked league in Europe is at best bizarre and at worst a conspiracy. There are no excuses anymore. He has everything it takes to play for one of the best sides of the world. If these clubs are worried about branding, it isn’t even like the man is without marketability. He makes saves like this:
And dresses like this:
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Follow my bro and teammate Andrey Onana! @andreyonana
A post shared by Nemanja Gudelj (@nemanjagudelj) on Jul 24, 2015 at 8:02am PDT
(Not to mention he’s probably already the greatest African goalkeeper of all time)
There's not a lot left to say other than that I'm on my knees, begging: someone just splash the cash so we can all enjoy André Onana on the big stage more often.
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