Forget £25m Jarrad Branthwaite - this is the Everton player Man Utd should be trying to sign

Is ten games too few to write a summer signing off? Ordinarily, the earnest answer is a yes, but then again, few recent acquisitions have endured the kind of hellish honeymoon period that Andre Onana has.

The Manchester United goalkeeper was parachuted in as a replacement to David de Gea, a certified club legend whose reputation had soured like a pickled kumquat in recent times, and who was silently ushered out of a side door in July with a pitchfork poking into the small of his back. Expectations were high too; Onana, after all, had only just featured in a Champions League final for Inter Milan, and was broadly-heralded as one of the best ball-playing number ones in world football. For Erik ten Hag and his methodical brand of build-up play, it felt like a match made, if not in heaven, then at least in one of its surrounding suburbs.

But then reality struck. The Cameroonian has stumbled his way through the fledgling stages of his time at Old Trafford like a pantomime horse on a speeding treadmill. Already there have been too many blunders to detail here, but his most recent faux pas came in Tuesday’s Champions League defeat at the hands of Galatasaray. First there was his gifted pass to a white shirt that ultimately led to a penalty - albeit missed - and a red card for Casemiro. Then there was his feeble attempt to prevent Mauro Icardi’s eventual winner - less of an obvious howler, but poor for a goalkeeper of his calibre, nonetheless.

To answer the facetious question at the top of this article, of course ten games are too few to properly dismiss a player, but the concern for Onana, and United writ large, will be how much longer his selection can be justified if he continues to falter as he currently is.

Which bring us to the Red Devils’ January transfer plans. At the time of writing, one piece of speculation that refuses to budge centres around promising young Everton defender Jarrad Branthwaite. According to the Daily Mail, the 21-year-old has emerged as a shock target to bolster the heart defence alongside more established names like Antonio Silva of Benfica and OGC Nice’s Jean-Clair Todibo. With Harry Maguire expected to leave Old Trafford sooner rather than later, it is understood that United are in the market for reinforcements, and would ideally like to bring in a player who could serve them well for years to come.

But given Onana’s ongoing tailspin, you find yourself wondering if United should instead be considering another Everton talent. Jordan Pickford has been linked with the Red Devils before, and there was even a point over the summer at which it looked as if a bid - previous reports rated him at around £25m - might be tabled.

The appeal is fairly obvious. He might have his detractors, but Pickford is England’s first choice, has been an established Premier League name for the better part of a decade now, and consistently proves himself to be an exemplary shot stopper and distributor of the ball; last season alone he conceded 72 goals from an xCG of 75.71, while his average short pass accuracy was 97.1%.

What’s more uncertainty lingers over his future at Goodison Park. There are constant rumours that Everton could look to sell him on in an effort to raise much-needed funds, and the common consensus is that he has been ready for a switch to a top six club for a long, long while now.

Of course, Onana deserves patience, and he will likely get it for the time being. But if we reach a point at the end of the season, or perhaps even in the approach to the January transfer window, where his form continues to flatline, don’t be surprised to see United linked with other goalkeeping options. And if they are to swoop for a new stopper in the relatively near future, they could do far, far worse than Pickford.