Manchester United secured Senne Lammens after the goalkeeper made clear that Old Trafford was his long-held destination. The move ended an interest from Aston Villa and followed reports that Villa had agreed a more lucrative deal with Antwerp than United\u2019s initial \u00a318.1 million ($24.3 million), according to the Daily Mail.<\/p>\n
United opted for Lammens even though Yashin Trophy holder and reigning Best FIFA Men\u2019s Goalkeeper Mart\u00ednez was believed to want to join them. Villa had also been linked because Mart\u00ednez wanted to move on, leaving a window for Antwerp and other suitors.<\/p>\n
In his first interview with club media Lammens explained why he favoured United. \u201cThis is my dream move,\u201d he revealed. \u201cWhen I was five [in 2007], United was at the height of football and you keep in your memory how big Manchester United is, so, when I heard they were interested, it was like a childhood dream.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember being a kid, Manchester United winning the Champions League and winning the league. [I want] to help the team get to a level that you can compete for a title again and to play Champions League again. That\u2019s also one of my biggest points, that I want to grow with the team and go up to the heights that used to be Manchester United. It\u2019s one of the biggest clubs in the world and the Premier League is the biggest competition in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lammens also reflected on the impressions of former Premier League players he encountered in Belgium, players who helped shape his view of the club. In his homeland he played alongside Toby Alderweireld, Vincent Janssen, Dennis Praet, Denis Odoi, Ja\u00efro Riedewald and Bj\u00f6rn Engels.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I talked to them about Manchester United, you could directly see their face change. The club alone, the aura of the club, it\u2019s massive, and being here, seeing it, it\u2019s a different level,\u201d he said. The comments underline why Lammens turned down alternative interest to join the club he admired as a child.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Senne Lammens says he rejected Aston Villa because joining Manchester United was a childhood dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2453,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[711,179,172],"tags":[647],"class_list":["post-2454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aston-villa","category-manchester-united","category-epl","tag-emiliano-martinez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}