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Senne Lammens finally made his Man Utd debut with Peter Schmeichel giving his thoughts on the new no.1.
Peter Schmeichel impressed with Senne Lammens’ Man Utd debut
What was noticeable at Old Trafford, was how relatively simple goalkeeping was received by the United faithful with Schmeichel suggesting that it shows what they have had to endure in recent seasons: “I mean, on the one hand, do you think, it's somehow ridiculous that he comes for two crosses and dominates and takes them and that's what gets everybody going. But on the other hand, that domination is what United fans have craved, I suppose. Sometimes what the team have craved.
“It's what you see, you know, you see this young lad. He didn't really have much to do for a long, long time in that game. He had the ball literally only by his feet and he did quite well with his feet. But you expect that from any young goalkeeper these days. That's how they're being brought up. So, you know, there was some reminiscence of Edwin. He had a couple of long balls up with his right foot, a couple of long balls up with his left foot. You think, wow, that looks quite good. And then, of course, he had that first save down to his left post, which, you know, expect him to save that.
“But, you know, once he's done that, he's a goalkeeper now. He's saving balls. And from that, I think, his confidence grew. And then he came for the crosses that he could come for. And you could see, from the first cross he came from, you can see Mathias De Ligt, you know, his reaction to it was fantastic. And that's what defenders, they want that when they're under the cosh. They really want the goalkeepers to come out and get the ball and take some of that pressure off. It's not happened at Manchester United for a bit. So, of course, the defenders were delighted.”
Schmeichel has word of warning for Lammens
Schmeichel though, doesn’t want to get carried away with stiffer tests than Sunderland at home still to come. With hindsight, not rushing Lammens into the starting XI was the right thing to do but things are only going to get harder for the former Royal Antwerp keeper: “And, you know, I mean, it's far too early to talk about how good this guy is. He's only young. He's hardly ever played any competitive football and most certainly not at the level of Manchester United.
“And unfortunately, we've had seen, we've seen over the years, you know, a lot of great players coming into Manchester United and the pressure is just relentless and they can't deal with that. So, it would be silly for someone like me to put a lot of pressure on him saying, oh, this is brilliant. Now we have a goalkeeper who was there for the next 20 years. He did well. He's got an international break now and you can think about his performance. And then the next game, he's got to go and do the same.”
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