A goalkeeper that has regularly been linked with Manchester United could be available - should they make a move?
Manchester United may have spent an awful lot of money on rebuilding their attack over the summer, but one problem evidently still remains – mistakes are still being made by their goalkeepers, and it’s still costing them games.
It was Altay Bayindir who was at fault this time, failing to deal with a set piece delivery and guiding it generously into the path of Riccardo Calafiori to score from about an inch out. Between the Turkish goalkeeper and André Onana, who continues to recover from a hamstring injury that kept him out of pre-season, there is little faith in United’s capacity to keep clean sheets.
It's a problem they may yet try to solve this summer. They made no more than a half-hearted effort to sigh Aston Villa’s Emiliano Martínez (perhaps no bad thing given his struggles last season) and don’t seem to be making any headway in rumoured discussions regarding Gianluigi Donnarumma or Senne Lammens. They’ve even been linked with former number one David De Gea, not that they seem to be pushing too hard for that move, either – but perhaps another goalkeeper who’s come onto the market could encourage them to make a move…
Why Diogo Costa could be precisely what Manchester United need this summer
For the past few weeks, Turkish outfit Galatasaray have been trying to sign Ederson from United’s cross-city rivals Manchester City – but don’t seem to have gotten any further than United. That, it seems, is why they’ve now launched a bid for Diogo Costa instead.
According to Sky Sports Germany reporter Florian Plettenberg, Galatasaray have made an initial bid of €20m (£17.3m) for the Porto goalkeeper, who is also Portugal’s number one and has been routinely linked with a move to bigger teams – including United.
While that bid seems unlikely to succeed (Costa’s release clause appears to be set at €60m, although reports vary), it may indicate that the 25-year-old is available for the right price and that Galatasaray serious believe that a deal can be struck at a reasonable fee. United could easily muscle in on the process.
If Costa is indeed available for a sensible price – and Porto may be encouraged to sell him now while he still has two years remaining on his contract – then he would offer an impressive potential solution to United’s woes.
Costa is not only an excellent shot-stopper but considerably more effective at dealing with crosses than Onana and, perhaps critically, extremely comfortable coming out of his area behind a high defensive line to deal with balls over the top. With direct counter-attacking systems more prevalent in the Premier League than ever, a goalkeeper who is adept at playing the sweeper role could be essential to long-term success.
He's also four years younger than Onana and unlike United’s notional number one right now, has never seen his save percentage for a full season dip below 70% or failed to prevent more goals than the xG model suggests that he should have done across a completed league campaign.
In short, he’s a very good goalkeeper and if he’s available for anything close to €20m, a potentially huge bargain, especially considering that he could easily have a decade of top-flight football ahead of him. They would also surely be able to out-muscle Galatasaray in a head-to-head battle to sign a player with the club’s clout and financial heft. So are there any reasons that they shouldn’t attempt to hijack Galatasaray’s move?
Diogo Costa’s flaws may be all too familiar
In October last year, United came up against Costa’s Porto in the Europa League – and the goalkeeper didn’t have his best day, conceding goals from Rasmus Højlund and Marcus Rashford which he most likely should have been able to prevent.
Costa, like any goalkeeper, is prone to the occasional clanger, and there has been criticism of his propensity towards egregious errors from the Portuguese media over the past year or two. Statistically, his performances continue to be impressive, but those dispiriting and costly moments happen with Costa in goal as well.
There is a gulf between the volume of mistakes that Costa makes and those made by Onana, admittedly. Costa has not been credited with a mistake leading directly to a goal in the Portuguese Primeira Liga since the 2021/22 season – Onana made three such errors last season alone.
But there will, inevitably, be ricks, as United have seen first hand, and shots will sometimes squirm though. Whoever comes in after Onana, whether this summer or next, will be under considerable pressure, and a goalkeeper who makes errors will find themselves facing a psychological battle even if they ultimately make enough saves and have a sufficiently well-rounded skillset to be a net positive for their team.
It doesn’t help that United have yet to make any additions to their defence or, perhaps more worryingly, their midfield, which struggled to adapt to Ruben Amorim’s system last year and offered less than adequate cover for the last line of defence. It would be no shock if United’s goal was peppered with regularity once more this season, even if they did look considerably better against Arsenal on Sunday.
So perhaps it’s best to give Onana one more year – either to improve or, if one is feeling especially cynical, to serve as a fall guy whose failures make life easier for a goalkeeper who comes after him behind a strengthened defence. Costa would certainly be vulnerable if he came into the team in the current climate.
Or, perhaps, it’s just better to buy a high-quality goalkeeper at a time when his asking price seems to be more than reasonable, and to trust him to handle the pressure and to establish himself as United’s unquestioned number one in a way that Onana has not. Costa has the quality required, after all. It remains to be seen whether United intend to make a bid and try their luck with another new goalkeeper.
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