Man United 'eye Championship goalkeeper and Gareth Southgate's godson'

Manchester United have reportedly set their sights on a Championship goalkeeper to deputise for Andre Onana.

The Red Devils have identified Preston North End goalkeeper Freddie Woodman as their potential man between the sticks.

Woodman, 28, signed for Preston permanently in 2022 and was their player of the year in his first season.

A former England Under-20s World Cup winner from 2017, Woodman is also Gareth Southgate's godson.

Despite keeping 13 league clean sheets, he has had a chequered season with numerous mistakes and is out for the rest of the campaign with an ankle injury.

The Sun reports that United have been keeping tabs on him as well as Blackburn's Aynsley Pears, 26.

Woodman is out of contract at the end of the season.

He would bring some Premier League experience from his days at Newcastle, where he appeared four times in the top flight, and has also had successful Championship stints with Swansea and Bournemouth.

The London native made a name for himself at the U20s World Cup, where he was goalkeeper of the tournament in 2017, though he has never had consistent top-level football.

He has also played for Hartlepool, Crawley, Kilmarnock, and Aberdeen in loan stints.

United signed Altay Bayindir as a back-up in September 2023 but he has only gone on to make seven appearances in two seasons.

Bayindir has spent some time injured but has been sparingly used even when fit.

Meanwhile, there have been questions around Onana, but Ruben Amorim backed his man in March.

'I think he passed this (stage) in the last year,' the head coach said. 'I don't know for sure. There was some difficult moments.

'But this season he did some great saves that save our team and then sometimes has some problems.

'But that is normal and I think if you look through our team you can find a lot of players with that issue, so I think we are not performing so well as a team and sometimes some players have problems.

'People talk a lot about the second goal from Ipswich. He is waiting for the touch of (Liam) Delap. I think that is really clear, and then the ball continues to the goal, so that can happen.

'We just have to support Andre, like we support all the players, and prepare the next game. Forget about the past and prepare the future.'