Peter Schmeichel really liked what he saw from new Manchester United goalkeeper Senne Lammens on his debut for the club, but warned not to be silly just yet.
As the Red Devils looked for a new ‘keeper over the summer, the 23-year-old Belgian did not seem the obvious choice.
Lammens only has experienced with Royal Antwerp and is yet to be capped by his country, so it is a monumental step up to perform at Old Trafford.
However, his first outing for his new club was encouraging, keeping a clean sheet in a 2-0 win over Sunderland on Saturday.
Schmeichel, who wanted to see his former club sign a much more experienced goalkeeper, was impressed and certainly feels Lammens looked a lot better than the likes of Andre Onana and Altay Bayindir who had donned the gloves before him.
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‘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? That’s a lot. It’s too much,’ Schmeichel told BBC Radio 5 Live.
‘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.
‘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.’
The legendary Dane was not in favour of signing the Belgian in the transfer window, wanting Aston Villa’s Emiliano Martinez or then-PSG goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, who has since moved to Manchester City.
‘We should have signed Emi Martinez,’ Schmeichel told The Sun, through SkyBet last month. ‘In fact, we should have gone for Gianluigi Donnarumma when we had the chance.
‘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.
‘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 Schmeichel.