Cameroonian André Onana, from Manchester United, is the surprising current Golden Glove winner in the Premier League, despite his team’s poor performance, marking the worst start in its history in the competition.

Under Erik Ten Hag, the team has managed to collect only eight points after seven matches, which is their weakest start ever, even worse than last season when they got one more point. In these seven games, United has conceded eight goals, six of which came in heavy losses to Liverpool (0-3) and Tottenham Hotspur (0-3), meaning there are eight teams that have allowed the same number of goals or fewer.

However, the Premier League doesn’t count the goals-to-games ratio for awarding the Golden Glove, unlike other leagues like La Liga; it only looks at clean sheets. Onana is the only goalkeeper in the league to have kept a clean sheet four times this season, against Fulham (1-0), Southampton (0-3), Crystal Palace (0-0), and Aston Villa (0-0), surpassing Alisson Becker and David Raya, who have three clean sheets each.

When compared to other goalkeepers in the league, Onana isn’t among those who make the most saves, with 22, while Robert Sánchez from Chelsea, Mark Flekken from Brentford, and Mads Hermansen from Leicester City have made 33 saves each. In fact, there are eight goalkeepers in the Premier who have made as many or more saves than him.

Plus, these three keepers mentioned face many more shots on goal than Onana. Flekken (46), Hermansen (45), and Sánchez (41) have dealt with more shots than Onana (29). The Cameroonian ranks twelfth in the Premier for shots faced and ninth in saves. In terms of expected goals, which indicates how many goals should have been scored against him statistically, the number is 10.27. This means he has saved 2.27 more goals than he should have.

Onana, who arrived in Manchester in the summer of 2023, has had a much better start to the season than last year and has been one of the few bright spots in a squad that hasn’t offered much defensive support, partly due to injuries like Luke Shaw’s at left-back. This situation has forced Ten Hag to play Diogo Dalot out of position, as well as make some rotations, such as leaving starters Lisandro Martínez and Mathijs De Ligt on the bench for the match against Aston Villa, bringing in John Evans and Harry Maguire instead.