SENNE LAMMENS is pushing a new Premier League rule to its absolute limit.
The Belgian arrived at Manchester United in the summer at the same time as the league introduced a new rule for goalkeepers.
Lammens, 23, has become the undisputed No1 at Old Trafford having impressed since his £18.2million arrival from Royal Antwerp.
The stopper has added a calmness between the posts that the Red Devils had been lacking with Andre Onana.
One way he has been able to do this is by exploiting the Prem rule that forbids goalkeepers from holding the ball for longer than eight seconds.
The previous rule saw keepers limited to just six seconds with the ball but without a noticeable punishment.
Should a goalkeeper hold on to the ball for too long then the referee will award the opposition a corner as punishment for time-wasting.
But Lammens seems to have got the knack down to an art as he holds the ball longer than any other stopper in the division.
Stats by The Athletic show that he is holding onto the ball for an average of 7.68 seconds every time he picks it up or claims it – just 0.32s short of the limit.
And he takes far longer than any of his Prem rivals to release it.
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Brighton’s Bart Verbuggen is the closest to Lammens as he keeps the ball for an average of 6.52s.
England no1 Jordan Pickford is just 0.02s behind the Dutchman and is the last one on the list to hold the ball for over six seconds.
At the other end of the spectrum is Arsenal’s David Raya, Bournemouth‘s Djordje Petrovic and Newcastle’s Nick Pope.
Pope is the goalkeeper who is the keenest to get the ball back into play in the Premier League.
The former Burnley man on average holds onto the ball for just 3.33s while Petrovic keeps it for 3.42s.
The third-quickest distributor of the ball is the Gunners stalwart, as he lets the ball go after just 3.96s.
United have beneffited from the authority Lammens has provided in the box this season.
The stopper has kept five clean sheets in 23 appearances in the league, which has helped the club climb to third with a +11 goal difference.
This time in the league last year, the Red Devils were 13th with a goal difference of -3.
Earlier this month, SunSport exclusively revealed that Lammens’ team-mates believe he has been the “buy of the season”.
Following the 1-0 win over Everton, interim boss Michael Carrick hailed Lammens when asked about his similarities to legend Edwin van der Sar.
Carrick said: “I’ll be careful what I say. I definitely see the similarities, yeah, without comparing them.
“I don’t want to be comparing them because I don’t think it’s fair to Senne. But there’s definitely similarities.
“I think for me, a goalkeeper has to be reliable, to be trustworthy and instead of creating a chaos, you want him to take the chaos away and calm things down.
“I think Senne is that. He’s quite quiet at times and unassuming, but he’s got a real steeliness.
“And it’s a big, big role for some and all this talking there about coping and just being comfortable in your environment.
“Sometimes it takes time, sometimes not, but how he’s gone about it at the moment, that calmness, that composure, I think it does help those in front of an awful lot.
“A major part of it is the character, the personality and that is a major attribute to have, especially playing here.”
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