Senne Lammens has grown into a clear example of why reliable goalkeeping matters. In his first season in the Old Trafford pressure cooker, he has built a case for consistency by doing the fundamentals well rather than seeking the spectacular. In a first interview with assembled member of the U.K. press, including from BBC Sport, the Daily Mail and Guardian, Lammens explained his \u201cpride\u201d in doing everything well, just \u201cmaybe not always the box-office stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edwin van der Sar captured the approach succinctly on Sky Sports Monday Night Football: \u201c[Lammens] makes saves when needed, not looking to make saves when not necessary.\u201d That temperament is a familiar template for United\u2019s best between the posts this century, alongside names such as Edwin van der Sar and David de Gea.<\/p>\n
There is a practical logic to restraint. \u201cSometimes at United , I don\u2019t really have a to make a lot of saves. It\u2019s a different kind of goalkeeping, but it’s also sometimes the most difficult when there are only one or two saves to be made,\u201d Lammens said, reflecting on how concentration becomes paramount when a keeper is largely a spectator. His stated philosophy is simple: \u201cAll-round and not really having any flaws,\u201d and he added, \u201cYou don\u2019t always have the [most] work, but it\u2019s staying focussed and not giving opponent anything\u2014not easy things, at least.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lammens cites Manuel Neuer as a model: \u201cI was such a big fan of [Neuer] because he didn\u2019t really have a weak point.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spoke a lot about it with Tom Heaton, who\u2019s helping me in my time here as well. He talks about not giving things away and keeping your team in the game. If you want to have a long career, especially in these kind of clubs, they have to count on you and you have to be dependable.\u201d<\/p>\n
That emphasis on dependability sits partly as a contrast to Andr\u00e9 Onana. When Ruben Amorim decided not to select Onana in the early weeks of this season, even after the Cameroon international recovered from a preseason injury, he favored Altay Bay\u0131nd\u0131r. The Turk struggled with the aerial demands of the Premier League, something Lammens thrives on, as Everton routinely loaded his six-yard box at set pieces this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lammens’ steady goalkeeping, focus on basics and aerial strength have brought calm to United. again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,969],"tags":[1001,436,1494],"class_list":["post-7118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-altay-bayindir","tag-andre-onana","tag-goalkeeping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7118","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=7118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}