'Not good enough' - Erik ten Hag makes Andre Onana admission amid talk of Man Utd ‘pleading’ with David de Gea to come back

The Cameroon international goalkeeper, who joined the Red Devils from Inter for £48 million ($58m) during the summer transfer window, has endured a slow start to life at Old Trafford. A number of costly errors have blotted his copybook, but he started to right some of those wrongs when saving a stoppage-time penalty in a dramatic Champions League win over FC Copenhagen.

Ten Hag has said of what he is looking for from Onana, as speculation rages regarding a potential return to Manchester for David de Gea: “You give him the standards and also the expectations, but also it’s about getting to the same level. He has high expectations from himself. We give him the confidence, look what you did in the past for great clubs in great leagues, you have the ability and the skills. The last two games were good progress, now we have to keep this going. It’s very good but at Manchester United good is not good enough.”

United's shut-out against Copenhagen saw them collect a first clean sheet since September 26, with the back door finally being bolted, but they are experiencing issues at both ends of the field. Ten Hag added on a lack of firepower from the Red Devils: “The cooperation has to click, but we showed this week some examples where there are so many we have overload positions, going in overload position to the opponent's goal and we don’t net or don’t even hit the target. We don’t have time to train this, we give some coaching and I’m convinced with the quality from our players that they will go and score more goals.”

United have scored just 11 goals through nine Premier League fixtures this season – the worst record in the top-half of the table – and will be hoping to find a spark from somewhere when they return to domestic action on Sunday in a home derby date with arch-rivals Manchester City.