Senne Lammens says he wants to be a Manchester United goalkeeping great like Peter Schmeichel, and joked about the fact the Danish legend didn’t know who he was following a £21.7million move from Royal Antwerp.
United fans sang ‘Are you Schmeichel in disguise?’ when Lammens made his debut against Sunderland at Old Trafford earlier this month, and the young Belgian has won his first three games between the posts.
However, Schmeichel admitted he hadn’t heard of Lammens, and claimed that United should have signed Aston Villa’s Emiliano Martinez instead or competed with Manchester City for Gianluigi Donnarumma.
The 23-year-old was able to see the funny side when asked what he said to Schmeichel at their first meeting. ‘Weren’t you the one who said they should have bought Donnarumma or Martinez?’ he said. ‘No, not really. It makes sense that he also had reservations. When I signed, he simply didn’t know me yet. I don’t think he had watched many Antwerp matches.
‘During one of the first matches he came to the sidelines for a little chat. He was very friendly. He tried to make me feel at ease, said I just had to do my thing and give confidence to my defence.’
Lammens, who acknowledged the comparisons with another former United keeper, Edwin van der Sar, because he is ‘also very down to earth and calm’, isn’t getting carried away with the flying start or the Schmeichel chant.
‘That’s England for you. If things go badly, they can bury you deep, but if things go well, they praise you to the skies,’ he added.
‘I take that with a grain of salt, because to be mentioned in the same sentence as Schmeichel, I’m going to have to prove myself many more times. But I did find it a very nice compliment.
‘I hope to play here for 10 years and be important, so that, like Schmeichel and Van der Sar, I can leave a legacy.’
In an interview with Nieuwsblad, Lammens opened up on his ‘crazy’ transfer to United, the risk he took in joining a big club that had just endured its worst season in more than half a century, and getting used to the ‘war’ goalkeepers face on set-pieces in the Premier League.
The former Club Brugge player understands why people weren’t sure if he would be an immediate replacement for Andre Onana having only had one full season as No.1 at Antwerp and is yet to make his senior international debut for Belgium.
‘I know that in England, there is a lot more talk about football than in our country – and they only paid €20 million for me, you know,’ said Lammens.
‘In Belgium, that’s a huge amount of money, but here it’s not a “wow” figure, which made people unsure whether I was truly a first-choice goalkeeper or more of a future option. That’s why it was so important to make a good impression in my first match.
‘Ultimately, every transfer carries risk. A lot of people thought that way, and I also thought so for a moment. But I saw this just as the perfect opportunity, because since the team hadn’t had a top season, I might get to play sooner.
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