Is Onana the best goalkeeper pick in FPL?

The new Premier League season is under a week away and we need to make hard choices as to which players will make our Gameweek 1 teams. We look at one of those decisions here and see if Onana is the best goalkeeper pick in FPL.

Deciding on a goalkeeper is one of the toughest choices an FPL manager will have to make and most tend to spend between £4.5m-£5m on their man between the sticks. Manchester United have a new goalkeeper and he comes in at just £5m, but is Onana the best goalkeeper pick?

Fixtures

Below is a fixture ticker ordered in terms of difficulty for the first six matches. The teams at the top have the easiest fixtures and the teams at the bottom have the worst fixtures.

We can see that Manchester United rank ninth on the ticker – they face matches against Wolves, Tottenham, Nottingham Forest, Arsenal, Brighton and Burnley.

The Manchester United defence

Maintaining a good defence is an appealing factor when selecting any goalkeeper in FPL. The Reds sustained one of the best defences in the league last season – they ranked:

First for clean sheets (17).
Joint second for goals conceded (43).
Eighth for expected goals conceded (51.18).

Andre Onana

Onana has become one of the most expensive goalkeepers in the world after signing for Manchester United from Inter. The 27-year-old managed to keep eight clean sheets from 24 Serie A matches last season. In his most recent Champions League campaign he helped his side make it all of the way to the final – racking up an impressive eight clean sheets from 13 games.

Not only does Onana have a very good save rate but his passing is one of the best in Europe and far superior than the player he replaced between the sticks David De Gea. An example of this being that in his recent pre-season friendly against Real Madrid, Onana achieved a pass-rate of 95% – De Gea managed to beat this just once in his entire 22/23 Premier League season. This could have a very positive effect on his bonus points and boost his appeal.

Are there other options?

Like any other position in the game there are a pool of options to choose from. Lets break them down and consider their appeal:

Aaaron Ramsdale (£5m) – Arsenal have great fixtures and maintained good defensive data last season. However, the potential incoming David Raya from Brentford could cause some doubts over his expected minutes. Not just that but the standout defensive option at Arsenal is centre-back Gabriel (£5m) who ranked top amongst all defenders for expected goals last season.

Mark Flekken (£4.5m) – Brentford have good fixtures to start the season and maintained good defensive stats last season. His game time will be secure if David Raya completes a move away from the club. One negative is that Raya proved a brilliant asset last season so Flekken has big boots to fill and there are question marks over whether he can do that. Brentford’ standout defensive asset is also Rico Henry (£4.5m) who held a better expected goal involvement than his backline.

Sam Johnstone (£4.5m) – Crystal Palace sustained good defensive stats under Roy Hodgson last season and they also have good fixtures. That may be the case but they failed to convert their expected goal conceded data into clean sheets at times.

Jordan Pickford (£4.5m) – Everton also have a good early schedule and improved defensively under Sean Dyche but have still failed to convince from a clean sheet perspective.

Bart Verbruggen (£4.5m) – Brighton held some great defensive data last campaign but there are some question marks over Jason Steele (£4.5m) and how much he will feature ahead of Verbruggen. Brighton’ standout defensive option is also Pervis Estupinan (£5m) who topped his defensive teammates for non-penalty expected goal involvement.

Is Onana the best goalkeeper pick in FPL?

Yes. Manchester United kept more clean sheets than any other team in the league last season. Because of that, investing in their backline is key. There is no standout Manchester United defender in terms of non-penalty expected goal involvement and minutes at the same price like there is for many other teams as well.

Onana’ impressive stats in the Champions League and other domestic leagues could well convert into bonus points for the season ahead which boosts his overall appeal. When looking at the other goalkeepers in his price bracket they either have a better standout option in their teams, worse fixtures, doubt over their expected minutes or a worse defence overall last season.