Manchester United's meek capitulation at Newcastle underlined the importance of midfield duo Casemiro and Christian Eriksen.
The humiliating 2-0 defeat, which put a fresh dent in United's top-four hopes, also confirmed their understudies are not up to the task.
Scott McTominay and Marcel Sabitzer are simply not adequate replacements and saw their inadequacies brutally exposed in Sunday's humiliation. While there was mitigation for Fred, who only came on for the last 10 minutes, he too is vulnerable ahead of a major summer exodus at United under boss Erik ten Hag.
