Onana was added to Cameroon’s 27-person team for the event on Thursday. It starts on January 13.
If he and his country make it to the final on February 11, he might not be able to play in up to six United games. One of those games would be the FA Cup third-round match at Wigan Athletic.
If a Premier League player is going to AFCON or even the Asian Cup, they will most likely leave their club to play for their country after January 1.
The best players from Cameroon will get together in Saudi Arabia for a warm-up camp. On January 9, they will play a match against Zambia before flying to the Ivory Coast for their first game against Guinea six days later.
ESPN says Onana is trying to skip the warm-up camp, even though his involvement in the tournament has always been uncertain.
One report says that the custodian wants to play against Wigan on January 8 and is in talks with his country’s FA about it.
Since joining Manchester United for £47 million from Inter Milan last summer, Onana’s career has been off to a rough start. He doesn’t want to spend too much time away from Old Trafford because he’s afraid he might lose his spot in the team.
That’s not likely to happen, though, since the 27-year-old has played every minute of United’s season and Erik ten Hag didn’t even give Altay Bayindir a chance to play in the Carabao Cup.
After a fight with boss Rigobert Song at the Qatar World Cup, Onana quit playing for his country last year. He came back in September, though.
Ten Hag had said before that he wasn’t worried about losing Onana to AFCON, saying, “When he goes there, we have a strong group of keepers with Bayindir and Tom Heaton, so we are comfortable.”
We hope Andre can play as much as possible, but we have two good keepers who can fill in for him if he can’t.
In other news, Hannibal Mejbri, a young star for United, was surprisingly left off of Tunisia’s tournament team.