Casemiro was brilliant in his first Manchester United game without Erik ten Hag as his manager. What if he’s *actually* not past it?
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!“The most important thing is passion and energy,” Ruud van Nistelrooy said ahead of kick-off. Manchester United were never short of those qualities while he banged goals in for fun for the Red Devils. But he also banged those goals in because a) he was an extraordinarily talented finisher and b) he had David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and others to ply him with multiple chances to score.
Manchester United were finally deemed bad enough by the new brains trust to send Erik ten Hag packing, but what we won’t know for a while is how much of their woe this season and last was down to the manager and how much is on the players.
There’s plenty of blame to go around and as is always the case, it will be a combination of both. But on the admittedly flimsy evidence of a Carabao Cup tie against Leicester’s second team, as we all assumed, these Manchester United players (the attacking ones at least) are a fair bit better at football than what we’ve seen of them in the last 18 months, with the patsy of the Red Devils’ downfall in that time coming up clutch here to remind his next manager why he was the mainstay in a team that won five Champions League trophies.
What if Casemiro isn’t actually a leggy liability unable or unwilling to still perform at the highest level? What if he’s actually still a brilliant footballer who can dominate the midfield as he did in his first season? What if Casemiro’s demise has been predominantly Ten Hag’s fault? What if Ruben Amorim can set Manchester United up to make the most of his enviable qualities while hiding his flaws? It’s a thought, isn’t it.
There’s a bit of chicken or egg at play here. Was Casemiro’s demise down to Ten Hag losing the plot in his second season or did the Brazilian himself initiate the downward spiral? Casemiro certainly won’t have thanked his manager for the patently ridiculous Bruno Fernandes-Mason Mount triangle he initially tried in midfield. He never recovered from that.
He scored two in his first Manchester United game without Ten Hag as his manager and could have had a hat-trick before half-time. The second was typical Casemiro – heading the ball onto the post before pouncing on the rebound. The first wasn’t typical Casemiro.
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Van Nistelrooy looked as surprised as anyone as the Brazilian controlled the ball 25 yards from goal after Bruno Fernandes stepped over it and then, with no fuss, passed the ball into the top corner. He didn’t smash it or curl it, he passed it, with his instep, into the top corner. It was a ludicrous finish.
He headed another chance from a lovely Fernandes cross just past the post and also played a major role in Alejandro Garnacho’s goal, lofting the ball over the Leicester full-back for Diogo Dalot to run onto and cross for the goalscorer.
“There he is again, Action Man,” was the call on commentary as Casemiro was in the right place at the right time to stop a Leicester attack in the second half. And it’s that defensive side of his game – the ‘everywhere-ness’ – that’s appears to have been lacking to Manchester United’s cost in recent times.
But again it’s not clear to what extent Casemiro can be blamed for how open United have been, and were again in this game. The back four – Dalot, Matthijs de Ligt, Victor Lindelof and Lisandro Martinez on this occasion – still looks very suspect, but that looks set to become a back three/five under Amorim.
And while we assume Manuel Ugarte will be one of the two energetic central midfielders in the Portuguese manager’s preferred 3-4-3 given it was Amorim he made his name under at Sporting, he was at least as culpable as Casemiro, if not more so, for Leicester finding space in the middle of the park here, while providing next-to-nothing going forward.
We also saw a timely return to goalscoring form for Fernandes, who got off the mark for the season with a deflected free-kick having taken 26 shots without finding the net before this game, and doubled his tally in the second half after a neat bit of skill to diddle the goalkeeper.
A good day for him and a memorable one for Van Nistelrooy, but the take-home for Amorim will be Casemiro’s performance, with the manager elect now pondering – as we all are – whether he can get a tune out of one of Manchester United’s most talented footballers that doesn’t require Stewie Griffin to follow him around with a tuba.
