Man United must be careful with Senne Lammens next season
Man United must be careful with Senne Lammens next season “The hardest position in English football,” was Gary Neville’s assessment of whichever goalkeeper is trusted between the sticks for Manchester United, while Edwin van der Sar extended the scope of his former teammate’s analysis: “I think [it] is the hardest job in the world football. ” There are few people in the world more qualified than the legendary Dutch shot-stopper to comment on the weight and pressure of the No. 1 shirt at Old Trafford, though the right-back who played just ahead of him would also feature highly on that list of esteemed judges.
And both players-turned-pundits were unanimous in their praise of Senne Lammens , United’s current holder of the jersey, who has enjoyed a stellar debut campaign in English football. Signed from Royal Antwerp for an initial £18. 1 million on deadline day last summer, the 23-year-old Belgium international was initially projected to be a long-term solution in goal, not an immediate one.
However, the disastrous performances of the two competitors at his new club, Andre Onana and Altay Bayindir , quickly led the relatively inexperienced signing to assume the starting berth – and it has proven a masterstroke for the Red Devils. Where both Onana, who is currently on loan at Süper Lig side Trabzonspor, and Bayindir, expected to also return to Türkiye this summer, were chaotic sources of uncertainty, Lammens has provided assured calmness. And this sense of security has diffused throughout the defence ahead of the Belgian , helping United to steadily climb the table since his debut in October against Sunderland, despite a change of coach in the dugout and a revolving door of different centre-back partnerships.
You would be hard-pressed to find a better transfer by any English club from that window, with Lammens the best signing during the INEOS era, given his age, price and the magnitude of the role he was confronted with after just one year of experience as a starter in the Belgian Pro League. Man United's signings under INEOS - Ratings So why, therefore, does this writer contend that a new goalkeeper should be a priority for United if the club already struck gold? Because, in football, a team is only as good as their back-ups in key positions – and the No.
2 to the No. 1 at the Theatre of Dreams resembles more of a nightmare, unless INEOS intervene this summer. Dumb and Dumber With a wealth of evidence to support this claim, neither Bayindir nor Onana is capable of starting in goal for Manchester United.
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