Keane says Lammens is “costing” United. Scholes raised the same doubt last month

Manchester United’s problems this season have been described in many ways: a manager under pressure, players who have lost their edge, an ownership still working out its next move. Roy Keane has added another name to the list.

Keane: “the goalkeeper is costing them”

Speaking on The Overlap, Keane said: “Going back to Manchester United, the goalkeeper is costing them, isn’t he? He was very good last year.”

The goalkeeper in question is Senne Lammens, the 24-year-old Belgium international who impressed in his first season at Old Trafford and has found the second harder. Before Saturday’s trip to Chelsea, United had lost six of their 12 games in all competitions this term, and Keane’s point is that a keeper who was an asset last year is no longer settling matches in their favour.

Scholes got there first

Keane is not the first former United player to raise it. Paul Scholes asked the same question last month on The Good, The Bad & The Football podcast, when he said the “jury’s probably still out” on Lammens. His argument was about the role itself: “What team have you seen win the Premier League without a top-class goalkeeper?”

Scholes pointed to Alisson at Liverpool, Raya at Arsenal, and the Schmeichel and van der Sar eras at United. “You start from the back, of course you do,” he said.

Lammens answers the noise

Lammens has acknowledged the scrutiny. After a dip in form during the last international break, he said: “I have not changed character by playing football at Manchester United. You have to be mentally strong and self-confident in the face of all those people who express their opinions.”

It is a reasonable response, and the counter-argument to Keane is obvious. A goalkeeper in a dip in form is not the only reason a team has lost half its games, and the problems elsewhere in the side are plain to see.

Both views, in other words, rest on the same standard. A club with ambitions of finishing near the top, as United did last season, is expected to have a goalkeeper who wins points rather than merely avoids losing them, and that is the bar Keane and Scholes are measuring Lammens against.

What it adds to the picture

The significance of the Keane and Scholes remarks is less about one player than about where the criticism is travelling. For weeks the debate has centred on the touchline: Jamie Carragher wanted Michael Carrick sacked, Gary Neville blamed the planning above him, and we covered that split in our piece on Carragher and Neville. Keane and Scholes now suggest the squad itself is not where it should be, and that includes the last line of defence.

Keane has not confined himself to the goalkeeper in recent days. He also told Carrick to “grow a pair” and start getting results. Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the INEOS directors stuck with Carrick for the trip to Stamford Bridge, and United lost 2-0, extending their winless run to nine games.

There was no clean sheet at Stamford Bridge. Morgan Rogers ran through the middle to score, and Cole Palmer converted a penalty after Lisandro Martínez was sent off. Neither goal was obviously one Lammens should have stopped. That will not quieten Keane, but it does not settle Scholes’s “jury” either.