Through the club’s official website, MU confirmed that they have completed the procedure to recruit goalkeeper Andre Onana from Inter Milan. To get Onana, the British representative paid Inter £48M.
After completing the medical examination and signing a 5-year contract with MU, the 27-year-old Cameroonian goalkeeper excitedly said: “To join Manchester United is an incredible honour, and I have worked hard all my life to get to this moment, overcoming many obstacles along the way”.
Before joining MU, Onana was expected by many to take over the number 1 shirt left by David De Gea at Old Trafford. However, he surprised everyone by choosing the number 24 shirt. This is Onana’s favorite number. The proof is that he wore the 24 shirt for most of the time at Ajax, Inter Milan, or the Cameroon national team. With Onana choosing the number 24 shirt, MU’s number 1 shirt is still empty.
Before Onana, the last MU player to wear the number 24 shirt was Tim Fosu-Mensah (who joined Bayer Leverkusen in January 2021). Notably, since the birth of the Premier League, some prominent names of MU have worn this shirt number such as Paul Scholes (from 1992 to 1995), David Beckham (1995-1996) or Wes Brown (1998-2003).
In addition, MU technical director and former midfielder Darren Fletcher also does the same. During the period playing for MU (from 2002 to 2015), Fletcher had 11 seasons wearing the number 24 shirt, except for 2 seasons 2002/03 and 2003/04.
