Senne Lammens will face his first major test at Anfield when Manchester United visit Liverpool, but Ruben Amorim is already massively impressed with one quality of his.
The bar for Senne Lammens to clear at Old Trafford wasn’t very high to begin with, as he was taking the place of Andre Onana and Altay Bayindir.
Lammens did the bare minimum against Sunderland, and even that was enough to blow away the fans, who have lived in fear of their goalkeeper for the last two years.
Beyond doing the bare minimum, however, Ruben Amorim has also noticed a brilliant quality in the Belgian that makes him a nightmare for opponents
Ruben Amorim decodes Senne Lammens’ game
Lammens’ style of play seemed perfectly suited to Man Utd, a statement that was given credence by the player’s confident debut.
He needs to show resilience to bounce back from setbacks, if and when they arrive, because that’s the only unknown about him at the moment.
In the meantime, Amorim can rest easy knowing he finally has a commanding figure in goal who radiates confidence among his teammates instead of dread.
Against Sunderland, United used his kicking ability to go over Sunderland’s press by winning second balls, and Amorim has now said that his ability to kick with both feet makes him a nightmare to press.
He said: “Senne has one ability that is really good: he can play both feet, and it’s harder for the opponents to try to make the pressure from one side or the other. They know that he can kick the ball with both feet, and I think that is really important.”
Lammens will expand his game eventually
Amorim seems to have made a tactical tweak to this United side by instructing Lammens to go long, with the 6’5″ Benjamin Sesko waiting to win headers and flick them on for runners in behind.
The United side looks incapable of progressing the ball from the back to the front on the ground, so it makes sense for Amorim to use his players’ strengths.
Coincidentally, when Lammens signed, playing with the ball on the ground was talked about as one area where he needed to improve.
Now that Amorim has simplified that area of his game, he can lean into his strengths while developing other parts of his game away from the spotlight.
It’s a change that benefits everyone and makes it a certainty that he will expand his game eventually with confidence and calmness.
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