page_title: Ritchie De Laet
section_title: Manchester United
hierarchical_section_title: Ritchie De Laet / Club career / Manchester United
caption_attribution_description: English: Ritchie De Laet, Belgian footballer born 1988, at Manchester United vs Birmingham City at Old Trafford, Manchester, on 16 August 2009
context_page_description: Ritchie Ria Alfons De Laet is a Belgian professional footballer who plays as a defender for Royal Antwerp in the Belgian First Division A.
context_section_description: On 8 January 2009, De Laet was signed by Premier League champions Manchester United on a three-year contract. The fee to be paid by Manchester United depended on appearances. After joining United, De Laet played exclusively for the club's reserve team. In March 2009, De Laet was named as one of five over-age players in the Manchester United under-18 squad for the Torneo Calcio Memorial Claudio Sassi-Sassuolo; he played in three of the five matches, and scored a penalty in the 5–3 semi-final penalty shoot-out win over Modena to take the Red Devils into the final, in which they beat Ajax 1–0.
  De Laet made his first appearance for the Manchester United first team on 24 May 2009, when he was named at left back for the last game of the 2008–09 Premier League season against Hull City.
  In the 2009–10 season, De Laet featured in the League Cup, coming on as a substitute against Wolverhampton Wanderers and Barnsley in the third and fourth rounds and starting against Tottenham Hotspur in the fifth. Despite a defensive injury crisis in November 2009, Alex Ferguson preferred to bring midfielder Michael Carrick on for Gary Neville ahead of De Laet, after the United captain suffered a groin strain in the next league match away to West Ham United on 5 December. He then played his first league game of the 2009–10 season on 15 December against Wolverhampton Wanderers. De Laet played his second league game against Fulham on 19 December, which ended in a 3–0 defeat. On 4 May 2010, he was voted as the Denzil Haroun Reserve Team Player of the Year, beating Oliver Gill and Magnus Eikrem to the award.
  In September 2010, De Laet joined Championship side Sheffield United on a 30-day emergency loan deal after the Blades suffered a defensive injury crisis, with both Chris Morgan and Rob Kozluk ruled out for several weeks.  De Laet returned to Old Trafford at the end of his month having made six appearances for the Blades.
  On 17 November 2010, De Laet joined Championship team Preston North End on a 28-day loan after an injury to first-team defender Callum Davidson. On 14 January 2011, De Laet joined Portsmouth of the Championship on loan until the end of the 2010–11 season.
caption: De Laet (front), with Darron Gibson, at Manchester United to Birmingham City on 16 August 2009
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2009:08:21 15:23:24", "Image ExifOffset": "162", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "300", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3913", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "786", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1048"}