The Red Devils have agreed a deal sign the Royal Antwerp shot-stopper amid continued concerns over Andre Onana and Altay Bayindir's competency
"There is a glaring issue for Manchester United that cannot be ignored and that is they need to find a new goalkeeper. They have to, I am absolutely unequivocal on that," Red Devils legend Gary Neville told after seeing an awful error from Altay Bayindir gift Arsenal a 1-0 victory at Old Trafford on the opening weekend of the new Premier League season.
"It is really unsettling when you don’t have a dominant No.1 who owns his six-yard box, who comes and punches everything and makes saves to save you points when your defenders make mistakes. They need to sort the goalkeeper out as they will continue to concede goals and points and it undermines what they are doing."
Despite that mistake, Bayindir also got the nod in goal for United's subsequent league games against Fulham and Burnley, with Andre Onana left on the bench. Head coach Ruben Amorim stuck with Onana as the club's first-choice goalkeeper initially after arriving at Old Trafford last November, but the calamitous Cameroonian is no longer a guaranteed starter, having been just as unreliable as he was under Erik ten Hag throughout 2023-24.
Through the opening weeks of the campaign, Amorim decided that Bayindir was the lesser of two evils, with 39-year-old Tom Heaton still seen as nothing more than a back-up option, but Neville is absolutely right: United cannot progress until they sign a new No.1. Fortunately, help is on the way.
The Old Trafford recruitment team has honed in on 23-year-old Royal Antwerp 'keeper Senne Lammens, who is set to complete an £18 million ($23m) move to Manchester before the summer window slams shut on Monday, and that will be a very small price to pay if he solves the club's long-standing crisis between the sticks.
Below, GOAL assesses whether the undeniably talented Lammens is truly up to that daunting task…
Where it all began
Lammens was born on July 7, 2002 in the Belgian city of Zottegem. He took his first steps into football at the age of five, joining local side KRC Bambrugge, and spent three years on their books before catching the eye of professional outfit Dender.
From there, the youngster developed at a rapid rate, and in 2014, he was snapped up by Club Brugge, historically the second-biggest club in Belgium behind Anderlecht. Just four years later, a 16-year-old Lammens was named in Brugge's first team squad for a Champions League group-stage clash with Atletico Madrid, though that did not turn out to be his breakthrough moment.
Brugge resisted the temptation to throw Lammens in at the deep end before he was ready. They had no desire to rush his development, particularly after signing ex-Liverpool goalkeeper Simon Mignolet in the summer of 2019. However, in December that year, Lammens made headlines across Europe.
The teenage shot-stopper scored a fantastic 95th-minute header for Brugge's U19s in a UEFA Youth League encounter against Real Madrid after going up for a corner, earning his team a 2-2 draw to take them into the knockout phase. It was a dream moment for Lammens, who had also established himself as a regular in the Belgium U17s team by that stage.
AdvertisementAFPThe big break
Lammens stepped up to Brugge's U23s squad – known as Club NXT – in 2020-21, which was their first season competing in Belgium's second tier. He largely impressed across his 13 appearances, but failed to keep a single clean sheet as Brugge finished rock bottom of the table.
However, good fortune did smile upon Lammens in July 2021 as he was handed his first senior start when Brugge faced Genk in the Belgian Super Cup final, after Mignolet was ruled out of the contest through injury, and played his part in a thrilling 3-2 victory.
Lammens made his Belgian Pro League bow eight days later as Brugge played out a 2-2 draw with Eupen in their 2021-22 campaign opener, but Mignolet then returned to full fitness. The youngster would only feature in two more games for the club that season, a 3-0 victory over KMSK Deinze in the early rounds of the Belgian Cup and as a substitute in the final match of the champions' play-offs against Anderlecht.
Brugge earned a 1-1 draw in that contest to clinch the title, giving Lammens his second piece of senior silverware, but he continued to see his path to a regular role blocked by Mignolet. Lammens made only 11 appearances across all competitions in the following season, with none of those coming in Brugge's run to the Champions League knockouts, and he was allowed to leave the club as a free agent at the end of the 2022-23 campaign.
That could have been a devastating blow, but Lammens landed on his feet when newly-crowned Belgian champions Royal Antwerp drafted the promising 'keeper in on a four-year contract, which gave him the chance to work under the guidance of former Bayern Munich and Netherlands star Mark van Bommel.
GettyHow it's going
In an interview with , Van Bommel described Lammens as a goalkeeper with "enormous potential" and suggested he could be a future starter for Belgium. However, Lammens was the second choice initially at Antwerp, behind Jean Butez, with the majority of his 18 appearances in the 2023-24 season coming in the Belgian Cup.
Antwerp made it all the way to the final of the competition, only to lose 1-0 against Union Saint-Gilloise, and they also slipped to a disappointing sixth-placed finish in the league, which cost Van Bommel his job. Jonas De Roeck was appointed as the Dutchman's replacement, and one of his first orders of business was to promote Lammens into the No.1 role.
Consistency continued to prove elusive for Antwerp, and De Roeck only lasted nine months at the helm, but Lammens drew widespread acclaim for his performances last term, while developing a reputation as an expert at keeping out penalties. He saved four spot-kicks in total, and kept 10 clean sheets as Antwerp finished fifth in the Pro League, with the senior Belgium national team calling him up for the first time in March.
Lammens did not play in the Nations League play-offs doubleheader against Ukraine, but the experience of training alongside Real Madrid star Thibaut Courtois and Nottingham Forest's Matz Sels was invaluable. Rumours of a big summer transfer to United began to swirl after that, and Stef Wils, who was named De Roeck's permanent successor at Antwerp earlier this summer, has admitted that Lammens is "ready for the next step".
Wils added after seeing Lammens put in a typically assured display in Antwerp's 2025-26 curtain raiser against Union Saint-Gilloise on July 25: "He has everything it takes to make it, in any league."
GettyBiggest strengths
Wils has only had two months to work with Lammens, but has been blown away by his abilities. "Senne is a modern goalkeeper. He's still young, he has the potential to grow," the Belgian coach has said. "He instills confidence in a defence. When high balls come, it's a plus that Senne is always there. That gives the central defenders a certain sense of calm."
In addition to having full command over his penalty area, Lammens is a superb shot-stopper. He made more saves than any other goalkeeper in the Belgian Pro League last season (127), and ranked in the top one per cent of goalkeepers across Europe's top 20 leagues for goals prevented, according to .
That incredible record is in part a by-product of Lammens' quality in one-vs-one situations, as he so often outfoxes attackers through a mix of superb positioning, razor-sharp reflexes and composure. United fans will also be pleased to know that the Antwerp star also excels when it comes to distribution with both feet, which is one of the areas Onana has fallen woefully short in since his 2023 move from Inter.