Manchester United bought Senne Lammens from Antwerp for £18.1m last season in a bid to solve their goalkeeping woes.
The 24-year-old signed a five-year contract at Old Trafford after United saw off interest from several other clubs to recruit the Belgian.
He enjoyed a superb campaign last season helping them with a third-place finish.
Lammens has often conceded that he deals with the intense pressure by embracing the ‘Mamba Mentality’, a philosophy of life and relentless self-improvement popularised by late NBA legend Kobe Bryant.
As a tribute to Bryant, he writes his idol’s jersey numbers 8 and 24 on his match gloves to help maintain focus and discipline.
“I love looking at other sports, other athletes, and especially how they handle the mental side of it… So it’s not really looking at the tactics but more about the mentality and the mindset and how they deal with adversities, deal with setbacks… Because they are probably the more important things, what I can learn from them as well… you might not play the same sport but almost every sport is a bit the same in disappointments, in the highs and the lows and how to deal with them,” Lammens told The Telegraph during an interaction facilitated by JioHotstar and Star Sports.
He always tries to instil confidence in the team through his calm demeanour.
“I think my game is quite all-round… The thing that comes out most is probably my calmness, the way you say it, and being trustworthy for my teammates and for the team… So that’s also something I take pride in as a goalkeeper… You have to be like a rock behind the team, where your teammates and fans and coach can depend on.”
The Manchester Derby is on Sunday and the team is already looking forward to repeating their solid performance at Old Trafford last season when they won 2-0 under manager Michael Carrick.
“…You feel some games are more important than others. City at home is probably one of the most important games for us… because you know the last couple years they’ve probably been the best team. So if you want to be the best, you got to beat the best…
“Also, last season I think personally our best performance was against City at home when the coach took over as well and you just felt the energy and the whole fan base behind us at home when we beat them and the way we did. Yeah, that’s a memory that’s still fresh in my mind and which I wanna try to repeat this weekend…”