Legendary Manchester United defender Paul Parker is happy the club has brought in a new goalkeeper, Senne Lammens, even though he would have preferred a more experienced option.
Speaking exclusively to The Peoples Person courtesy of WhichBookie, Parker explained why sending Andre Onana on loan to Trabzonspor is the right decision by INEOS.
Back to basics “Getting him out of the club’s a good thing,” he said. “You couldn’t have him around with the new young goalkeeper coming in, because you just don’t know how he was going to be with him.
“I’d rather see out with the old and in with the new, even if it’s only a loan. You want the young lad to come in. He’s 22 years of age. 22 years of age goalkeeper now is not the same as a 22-year-old goalkeeper from 10, 20 years ago. Different mentality.
“I’m hoping this lad is quite strong mentally. Goalkeepers generally grow up very, very quick. But you have to be stupid as well. You have to be stupid to dive at people’s feet!
“I don’t want a good-looking goalkeeper. You want someone who looks like a goalkeeper, with good hands, and presents himself as a goalkeeper. He doesn’t go around talking about keeping passes to the minimum, playing on the edge, passing through the back. No! Save the ball! Catch it!
“When a corner’s coming, don’t allow different coloured shirts to affect your judgment on where the ball’s going to and where it’s coming from. See the ball at all times. That’s what you want. And when you save it, don’t push it back to where it comes from. Try and catch it.
“When you go to punch, try and punch in a manner that you’re not going to take out players and allow VAR to give penalties.”
Mentality is everything The former England man said that signing Lammens carries a lot of risk.
“So, I would say this new goalkeeper, he’s number two in Belgium, but …we’ve signed a number one from Turkey, that didn’t work out, did it, really?”
Parker added that he would have rather United had signed Emiliano Martinez or Gianluigi Donnarumma, “because of their coolness, because they both had presence.”
On the other hand, he conceded that “they’ve got somebody who’s hungry, they’ve looked at longevity and gone down that road, which is absolutely perfect. You get a really good young goalkeeper who will have his moments if he’s young, but still you can bounce off the back of them. Somebody who wants to improve.”
Panic at the Cottage Parker mentioned the emotion generated in United’s first two Premier League matches against Arsenal and Fulham and Altay Bayindir’s performance under pressure.
“You need a presence in there who’s got stature. If he is being blocked off, he’s big enough to say a knee in the back ain’t going to hurt too much.
“Just the presence will make a difference rather than what we saw when Arsenal played.
“Fulham put a corner in the box every time and it was frightening. I was commentating on the game. I think people thought I was on a helter skelter. Just the noises that might have been going through the mic every time Fulham and Arsenal got corners!
“There was a panic on there, there was a panic. It was everything, everything was scary. “
Although the 61-year-old said that Martinez or Donnarumma would have brought immediate presence, he noted that either would have been a relatively short-term fix and said he hoped the club were making a similar shrewd investment on a young keeper as they had in the past.
“It was that £600,000 I think Pete[r Schmeichel] was. And look what happened to him. So you really don’t know.
“And Pete, as you know, Pete still is, but was, ambitious. All you hope is that Lammens has got that little bit in him to want to be a Schmeichel, to want to be a Van der Sar as well…he’s got that body shape hasn’t he? That greyhound look.”
“Whereas you look at Onana, he’s a whole box of muscles. No great agility in that way, no movement, just a bundle of muscles. Today’s goalkeepers are lean. Let’s hope he’s mean.”
Featured image Mike Hewitt via Getty Images
Follow us on Bluesky: @peoplesperson.bsky.social
Red Billy Red Billy is the managing editor of The Peoples Person, author of three books and totally obsessed with football’s transfer market. Billy still insists Matteo Darmian and Alex Telles could have made it at United given half a chance.
