After a series of friendly matches before the new season, "Red Devils" fans are somewhat optimistic about the performance of Erik ten Hag's students. However, there were still many criticisms and disappointments towards Casemiro - the captain but considered to have played the worst.
In the 0-1 defeat to Rosenborg, the 32-year-old midfielder only successfully made 1 of 6 long passes, won 5/9 of the challenges and lost the ball 11 times. Goal described Casemiro as slow and unable to keep up with the situation on the pitch. The former Real Madrid player lost the ball continuously in the edge of the penalty area and was easily passed by Tomas Nemcik.
"The results of the friendly matches are not the most important thing, but this defeat makes me not satisfied. The whole team has not been fully prepared to enter the new season. As a player, you need to be physically fit and fit enough to meet the standards of top-level football, Erik ten Hag shared after the defeat to Rosenborg.
Casemiro continued to be the worst factor in the 2-0 victory over Rangers. The 32-year-old star continuously made poor passes and easily let his opponents pass him in dangerous areas. Not only that, he also wasted a good counter-attack by Man United when making a bad move towards Aaron Wan-Bissaka. Casemiro's performance did not improve much compared to Arsenal when he continued to receive a score of 6.6 from Sofascore. The Man United captain touched the ball 26 times, successfully passed 15/20 times (7.5%), won 2/5 times and lost the ball 5 times.
Casemiro's decline in form has disappointed Man United fans throughout the 2023-2024 season. That poor performance even left the midfielder absent from the FA Cup final against Manchester City, as well as the Brazil squad for Copa America 2024. It seemed that the break would give Casemiro a strong comeback, but it was still the case.
According to The Athletic, the prospect of Casemiro leaving Man United only happens if he meets 3 criteria.First, M.U must be paid for the remaining 2 years in the contract if he does not want to suffer a loss of £36 million.Second, the Old Trafford team hopes to receive an attractive transfer fee, thereby using the money to recruit Manuel Ugarte from PSG and Matthijs de Ligt of Bayern Munich.Finally, any team that wants to buy must meet Casemiro's salary of 350,000 pounds/week, equivalent to more than 18 million pounds/year.This is considered the biggest obstacle, which can only be accepted by teams in Saudi Arabia.
However, the door to joining the Saudi Pro League has also gradually closed as the interest of teams in Casemiro has cooled down.In addition, spending heavily is no longer a part of the development strategy of Asian teams.According to statistics, the Saudi Pro League spent a total of £853 million in the summer of 2023 on deals of Neymar, Sadio Mane, Karim Benzema, Aymeric Laporte, N'Golo Kante and Ruben Neves.Currently, this figure is at 21 million pounds in the 2024 summer market.
Therefore, Casemiro is likely to continue to stay at Man United in the early stages of the 2024-2025 season. Until he finds a new destination, the Brazilian midfielder should practice getting used to the bench.
