Lammens will need 'rhino skin' like De Gea to succeed - Jones
- Published
Manchester United's explanation for choosing Senne Lammens over Aston Villa's World Cup winner Emi Martinez on transfer deadline day is that they wanted someone who will be able to play a central role in their team in three or four years' time, when they hope to be challenging for major honours again.
This theory is solid.
What it ignores is the swirl of noise that gathers when any United keeper makes a mistake.
"To be the number one at United you need to have rhino skin," said Phil Jones, who made 229 appearances in 12 seasons at the club, mostly in defence.
During Jones' time at the club, seven goalkeepers featured in the Premier League - Ben Amos, Anders Lindegaard, David de Gea, Victor Valdes, Sergio Romero, Joel Pereira and Dean Henderson.
"The Manchester United shirt is a heavy one to wear," he said.
"What is absolutely paramount is that the goalkeeper is calm and can deal with certain situations. He needs to be commanding and not be flapping at crosses.
"If a goalkeeper makes a mistake, it becomes infectious very quickly and spreads through the defensive unit. If a goalkeeper made a mistake, it was almost like you couldn't get it out of your system until the next game."
That is why Jones feels De Gea - the goalkeeper he played most often with - turned out to be so good, even if he had a tough start before eventually going on to win four club player of the year awards.
"When I say rhino skin, he had it," said Jones.
"It is ruthless in a way but he almost had this ability not to care. He was quite blase about the errors he made, even in training sometimes. But when you needed him he was there."