📅 September 1, 2026
One Year Ago Today, United Won a Deadline Day They Were Losing
One year ago today, Manchester United spent deadline day chasing a goalkeeper from the Belgian league that another Premier League club had already agreed a fee for. They were behind, they were bidding less, and the deal wasn’t happening.
Nine months later Senne Lammens was voted the Premier League’s signing of the season.
That’s the case for not writing off a day that hasn’t happened yet. It’s also, if you read the whole story rather than the ending, a fairly precise instruction manual for what United have to do in the next few hours.
What actually happened on 1 September 2025
United signed Lammens from Royal Antwerp for €21m, about £18.2m, plus €4m in add-ons. He was 23, he signed for five years to June 2030, and he had kept more clean sheets than any other goalkeeper in the Belgian Pro League the season before.
The part everyone has forgotten is that United were losing the race. Antwerp’s director of football Marc Overmars said afterwards that his club had a deal in place with Aston Villa, and that United’s opening offer was lower than Villa’s. In Overmars’s words, United started deadline day as the losers. The agreement came about four hours later.
The reason it turned is the bit that matters. Lammens didn’t want to go to Villa. He wanted United, and he travelled for the move without Antwerp’s permission, which left his own club distinctly unimpressed. The fee mattered less than the player having already decided where he was going.
What United got for £18.2m
He took the shirt off André Onana and never gave it back. Thirty-two Premier League appearances, eight clean sheets, eighteen wins, and a third-place finish that put United back in the Champions League.
Then the Barclays Transfer of the Season, voted by supporters, ahead of every marquee arrival in the division. A goalkeeper from Antwerp, bought at the last hour, for less than a third of what United paid for Carlos Baleba this summer.
Why this reads across to today
The shape of the Jorge Salinas situation is close enough to be uncomfortable.
A young defender outside the elite five leagues, at a price that is small by United’s standards. Rival clubs circling, with Atlético Madrid and Barcelona both interested. A player who, by the reporting, has already agreed personal terms with United. And a fee that is fixed rather than argued over, because the £13.7m release clause removes the negotiation entirely.
Lammens cost £18.2m and United had to outmanoeuvre a rival to get him. Salinas costs £13.7m and United don’t have to outmanoeuvre anybody, because Atlético are trying to haggle Racing Santander down instead of paying the clause and Barcelona can’t move until they sell Alejandro Balde. The 2025 version was harder than this one.
The other deadline day, which nobody puts on a poster
Here is where the hope needs its counterweight, because United have done this before and it didn’t work.
On 1 September 2023 they signed two players on loan. Sofyan Amrabat arrived from Fiorentina for a loan fee of around £8.5m with a £17.1m option to buy. United didn’t take the option. And Sergio Reguilón came in from Tottenham as an emergency left-back, made twelve appearances, started eight, contributed no goals or assists, and had his loan cut short in January.
The reason they ended it early is the detail that should give you pause today. They triggered the break clause partly because Luke Shaw had got fit again.
That is the same club, the same position, the same date, and the same underlying problem. It’s the precedent for a panicked deadline-day left-back who solves nothing, and it’s only three years old.
So what separates the two?
Not luck, and not the calendar. Three things.
Lammens was a signing, Reguilón was a plug. One was a five-year contract for a 23-year-old identified as a first-choice goalkeeper. The other was a loan taken because two left-backs were injured at once. United bought a player in the first case and rented a body in the second.
Lammens had already chosen United. He turned down a club that had agreed a fee for him. Reguilón was available because Spurs had no use for him. A player who wants to be there isn’t a small factor, and it’s the one thing you can’t buy at 10pm.
Lammens was the best in his league at what he did. Most clean sheets in Belgium the previous season. He arrived with an argument behind him, not just a price.
Salinas passes the first two of those tests. He’d be a signing rather than a loan, and the reporting says he has agreed terms, which means he’s picked United over Atlético and Barcelona. The third is where the honest doubt sits: he’s 19, and he spent last season in Spain’s second division rather than dominating a top flight. Lammens was 23 and already the best goalkeeper in his country.
What it actually proves
Deadline day doesn’t make signings good. United’s own record in the last three years contains both a transfer of the season and a left-back sent home in January.
What the Lammens deal proves is narrower and more useful: United’s recruitment is capable of identifying a specific profile outside the obvious market, agreeing a fair price, and moving quickly when the player wants to come. That happened a year ago today, against a rival who was ahead of them, and it produced the best value signing in the division.
Today they have a player who has reportedly already said yes, a fee nobody can bid up, and two competitors who each have a reason not to pay it. The 2025 version of this club found a way to win a race it was losing. This one only has to finish a race it’s already leading.
Source: Lammens fee, contract length and the Aston Villa detail via Sky Sports, with Marc Overmars’s account of the bidding via Yahoo Sports. Transfer of the Season award and his debut-season record from the Premier League and Manchester United. The 2023 deadline-day loans and Reguilón’s cut-short spell via 90min and Manchester United. Accurate as of the morning of 1 September 2026.