Senne Lammens: From World Cup Villain to Manchester United Star
Manchester United unearthed one of the stories of their 2025/26 season in a position that had become a problem. Senne Lammens arrived at Old Trafford as an £18 million signing from Royal Antwerp, a name most supporters had barely heard, a gamble from the new INEOS regime at a time when the club desperately needed certainty in goal.
Andre Onana had struggled. Altay Bayindir had not convinced. United were leaking confidence as much as goals. Lammens, just 24, walked into that storm and calmed it.
He delivered a superb debut campaign, so impressive that Belgium called him up for the World Cup. For a player once seen as a long-term project, he had suddenly become part of the present, not just the future.
World Cup dream turns sour
On the biggest stage, though, the script turned brutally. Thibaut Courtois started every game for Belgium until the quarter-final against Spain, when injury forced him off and finally opened the door for the United No.1.
It should have been Lammens’ moment. Instead, it became the clip no goalkeeper wants attached to their name.
With the game in the balance late on, he failed to hold a long-range effort from Pau Cubarsí. The ball spilled loose and Mikel Merino reacted first, stabbing home an 88th-minute winner that sent Spain through and Belgium out.
The reaction back home was fierce. Belgian fans were crushed; the national media went after him hard. For a young keeper, it was the kind of mistake that can cling to a career.
United close ranks – and see something new
At Old Trafford, they had seen this story before. Big names, big errors, and the tidal wave of abuse that follows. Club staff were prepared to wrap Lammens in support, knowing how damaging a World Cup error can be.
They hardly needed to.
According to a report from The Sun, United insiders have been taken aback by how calm, how utterly unshaken, Lammens has been since returning to Manchester. One senior club source even described him as “excellent” and believes he has actually improved since that night against Spain.
He came back, took the No.1 shirt formally after Altay Bayindir’s departure on loan, and simply carried on.
No sulking. No visible crisis of confidence. Just a goalkeeper intent on proving that one mistake on the international stage would not define him.
Response on the pitch
The evidence is already there in the Premier League. United lost to Hull City, but Lammens emerged with credit, producing a strong individual display behind a team that faltered in front of him.
Against Ipswich Town, he backed that up with a couple of sharp, important saves, the kind that settle a defence and remind supporters why the club trusted him with the gloves in the first place.
The howler against Spain will not be forgotten quickly in Belgium. That is the nature of tournament football. At Manchester United, though, it looks increasingly like a turning point rather than a stain — the moment a young goalkeeper took the hardest punch of his career and came back looking even harder to beat.
