Casemiro isn’t perfect, but his Man United legacy will be massive | OneFootball

Manchester United’s 4-0 drubbing at Brentford in 2022 was one of the club’s darkest hours. The Red Devils finished the match bottom of the Premier League, no points won from the first two games of a season already looking dead in the water.

Prospective signings could have been forgiven for having second thoughts about an Old Trafford switch but Casemiro, watching from Madrid ahead of what earlier in the summer had seemed an impossible move, doubled down. “Tell them I’ll fix it,” the veteran midfielder told his agent.

Initial shock

When United’s tempestuous transfer policy finally delivered the player six days after that humiliating defeat there followed a moment of genuine stupefaction – was this the real Casemiro? Did Real Madrid know something we didn’t?

United had spent the summer on an embarrassing pursuit of Frenkie de Jong, an Erik Ten Hag favourite who had made it abundantly clear that he didn’t want to join his old boss at Old Trafford.

That they made a late pivot to his El Clasico counterpart is a sliding doors moment for the club, who were improved far more by the addition of the battle-hardened Brazilian than they would have been by a disinterested Dutchman.

Casemiro was a galactico signing which would never have happened under INEOS, and the footballing world held its breath to see if he would sink or swim at one of the most dysfunctional clubs in Europe.

Explosive start

After months of speculation, it is now official that Casemiro will leave United when his contract expires at the end of the season.

And while his impact at the club is indelible, his departure comes at the right time – after a series of highs and lows with the Red Devils he is now glowing like a slowly-diminishing red dwarf in the curious vacuum that is United’s one-competition second half of the season.

His first campaign at Old Trafford may have been a culture shock for a player used to operating at the highest of high levels but it was pure manna for United, who had almost by accident attracted a world class solution to one of their biggest problems.

The ninth Brazilian to play for United, suddenly transplanted out of a Real Madrid midfield which is already the stuff of modern myth, showed he was much more than a brutish enforcer, providing creative guile from deep and an unlikely goal threat. His first strike for the club, an equalising header away to Chelsea, produced an enduring image of the United incarnation of Casemiro – a primal scream unleashed at the away end of Stamford Bridge.

Horror show

But all too quickly that felt like a distant memory, as the five-time Champions League winner underwent an extraordinary drop-off in form, one so severe and damaging that Ruben Amorim claimed it left him below even Toby Collyer in the pecking order.

From United hero to almost pantomime villain Casemiro transformed from inspiration to liability, no longer able to hack the pace and intensity of a league which mere months before he had made his playground.

There was a collective sigh of relief amongst those left red-faced by his perhaps surprisingly strong start in England but exasperation at Old Trafford, where a superstar earning some £350,000 a week was suddenly an albatross who even the Saudi Pro League was reluctant to touch.

The Brazilian Lazarus

What followed this footballing nadir was a Lazarus-like recovery which, while never quite returning him to the heights of his first season certainly slapped him back as one of the first names on a United teamsheet – at least with their existing set of midfield options.

And that, really, is his greatest achievement at the club – not his Carabao Cup-winning goal, not racking up nearly 150 appearances, but maintaining his iron-clad professionalism in an environment so corrosive to anything like it.

Even in the doldrums of his mid-term form, it’s hard to imagine Casemiro as anything other than a dream figure to have in the dressing room and on the training ground. Midfielders could use his skills as a template, but every player in the squad could stand to learn from his experience and his humility.

So did Casemiro “fix” United? Not quite, but then that will take more than just the efforts of one man. He he did provide a shot of adrenaline in the arm of a stricken football club which is doing the right thing by not trying to persuade him to outstay his welcome. Now United must be decisive in securing his successor before the effects wear off.

Featured image Jan Kruger via Getty Images

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