Senne Lammens becoming first choice goalkeeper at Manchester United this season was not the original plan, but the club changed their decision late in the summer, reveals the player’s agent.
The Belgian arrived at Old Trafford from Royal Antwerp on September 1 in a deal worth just over £18m.
The young stopper had impressed in his home country but had no top level experience and was yet to be capped by Belgium, so it seemed like a leftfield choice to take the gloves for the Red Devils.
Andre Onana left Manchester United for Trabzonspor and Altay Bayindir was playing when Lammens arrived, but the new signing quickly usurped the Turkey international and has remained in the team ever since.
Now a full Belgium international, Lammens has been good since establishing himself in the first team, but there were plenty of questions over his signing, including from club legend Peter Schmeichel.
The goalkeeper’s agent, Mark Volders, says that criticism only came from people expecting a more experienced goalkeeper to be signed.
Volders reveals that Manchester United’s plan was actually to leave the vastly more seasoned Onana as first choice and ease in Lammens, but things changed at the eleventh hour.
‘Those critical voices… the big problem was that they expected a very well-known name, like [Gianluigi] Donnarumma or [Emiliano] Martínez,” the agent told HBVL.
‘But actually, for a long time, the intention within United was for Onana to stay and for Senne to be given time to adjust.
‘Ultimately, they changed their tune right at the very end, Onana left, and fully embraced Senne. But in hindsight, you can only say that United was right about that.’
Volders is right that critics of the move wanted a bigger name to take over from Onana, with Schmeichel saying he had never heard of Lammens before he was linked to Manchester United.
‘We should have signed Emi Martinez,’ Schmeichel told The Sun, through SkyBet earlier this season. ‘In fact, we should have gone for Gianluigi Donnarumma when we had the chance.
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‘With Martinez, everything was lined up and that felt like really good news, because he’s exactly the kind of goalkeeper Manchester United should have.
Senne Lammens at Manchester United
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‘As for Lammens, I’ll be honest, I’d never heard of him until the link came up. I know his stats are excellent across the top ten European leagues. But that was with Antwerp in Belgium, in a team that finished fifth.
‘Stats don’t show how you react after a mistake, or how you cope with the pressure of Manchester United. That pressure is unlike anywhere else in football.’
He added that a punt on a youngster is not what Ruben Amorim’s struggling team needed right now.
‘Lammens could turn out to be the best signing ever – but right now, it feels like a hopeful one, and that’s not what United need at this moment in time,’ said the iconic Dane.
The iconic Dans has changed his tune now, though, and has been very impressed with the new arrival.
‘He’s only 23 years old, he’s come in and there’s calm at the back four, there’s not this chaos where they don’t want to pass him the ball back to him,’ Schmeichel told ViaPlay. ‘They trust him. He seems a very, very confident young man.
;And also, one more thing I like about him is he is so quick in turning the game. So when he gets the ball, he’s not afraid of kicking the ball up the other end or throwing the ball up. Starting a counter-attack very quickly.’
