LYON, France — Ruben Amorim says he remains “really confident” in André Onana despite the goalkeeper’s two blunders costing Manchester United a crucial Europa League victory against Lyon on Wednesday.
Onana made two mistakes, including one deep into stoppage time, as United were held to a 2-2 draw at Groupama Stadium. It means the tie is in the balance ahead of the quarterfinal second leg at Old Trafford next week.
“It can happen,” said Amorim. “If you play football, you play a lot of games, you can make mistakes. 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. But I’m really confident in André.”
Onana’s miserable performance came after he became embroiled in a war of words with former United midfielder Nemanja Matic before the game.
Matic branded Onana as “one of the worst goalkeepers in United’s history” on Wednesday after Onana had said United were “way better” than Lyon.
“There’s nothing I can say to André in this moment,” said Amorim.
“The most important thing is to be natural and then, when the time comes, I will choose the best XI to play.
“The best thing is to look at the goals, all the actions that André had in the a game, this is the best way to help any player. It’s to focus on the game, what happened, what we need to improve and then put the player in.”
Lyon coach Paulo Fonseca denied there was ay underhand motive behind Matic’s pre-match words.
“It was not a strategy by Nemanja Matic at all,” he said. “I think that’s something normal.
“Of course we need to respect everyone’s opinion and I think Nemanja and André Onana forgot about this tonight, so everything is good now.”
Information from Reuters was used in this report.
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