Legendary former Manchester United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel has taken a swipe at Andre Onana and Altay Bayindir while giving his assessment of Senne Lammens' debut. After an impressive first outing, the iconic former keeper was quick to manage expectations surrounding Lammens. The summer recruit made his debut for United on Saturday afternoon, keeping a clean sheet in a 2-0 victory over newly-promoted Sunderland.
Manager Ruben Amorim took the bold decision to bench Bayindir and give Belgian Lammens his first chance to shine ahead of the international break. His introduction comes during a challenging time for United's goalkeepers, with both Bayindir and Onana making several high-profile blunders. Onana recently made a temporary switch to Trabzonspor in the Turkish Super Lig, allowing the 23-year-old to climb the ranks at Old Trafford and challenge the Turkish keeper for a spot in the starting line-up.
Schmeichel didn't shy away from pointing out the past errors of the goalkeepers that have plagued United. While the early indications for Lammens are promising, the multiple-time Premier League title-winning shot-stopper emphasised that he didn't want to heap too much pressure on him, stating that the true test of quality will be how he reacts to mistakes in the future.
"You think about the goalkeepers that we've had over these last couple of years and how many goals we've conceded from errors, nine errors already this season - it's too much," he shared with Monday Night Club.
"I go back to when I played, my instruction was and it was the same with Edwin [van der Sar] and David de Gea, we had to save the team 10 points a season, not give them away and that's what we've got used to in the last couple of years, goalkeepers giving goals away and therefore losing points. First of all, it's nice to see a clean sheet, then a really good and solid goalkeeping performance.
"It's what you see, you see this young lad, he didn't really have much to do for a long, long time, he literally only had the ball at his feet and he did quite well.
"You'd expect that from any young goalkeeper these days - as that's how they're brought up - so there was some resemblance to Edwin, a couple of long balls, he had that first save down to his left, which you expect him to save, but once he's done that, he's a goalkeeper now, he's saving balls.
"From that, I think his confidence grew, you could see from the first cross, Matthijs de Ligt's reaction was fantastic, defenders want that when they're under the cosh to take some of that pressure off."
Schmeichel continued: "It's not happened at Man Utd for a bit and of course, the defenders were happy about it. It's far too early to talk about it, how good this guy is, he's only young, he's hardly played any competitive football, he's most certainly not at Man Utd.
"Unfortunately we've seen over the years, great players come into Man Utd and the pressure is relentless - then they can't deal with that. It would be silly for someone like me to put more pressure on him.
"He did well, he's got an international break now then the next game he's got to do the same. Then we see how he develops, all goalkeepers make mistakes, that's when we find out how good people are, in how do they react to those mistakes? It was nice, clean and positive, things that we haven't been used to."