You could see what Paul Ince was getting at. As good as Casemiro was against Reading, Manchester United didn’t spend £70million on a 30-year-old to pull the strings against a mid-table Championship side.
This was a reminder of Casemiro’s enduring class and the last few days have been an example of a player freed from the routine of his mundane job at Real Madrid. He created two goals at Nottingham Forest, scored two against Reading, and is the architect and the wrecking ball in this United side.
But Casemiro won’t really be judged on games against Forest and Reading, as Ince was intimating in his post-match comments praising the Brazilian.
READ MORE: United issue Eriksen injury update
“Casemiro is a Champions League winner, a fantastic player, a great player,” he said. “It is irrelevant what you do against Reading or Leicester or Southampton, you base it on what you do against Arsenal and Man City and if you win titles.
“That’s what we had with Keaney and Robbo. As much as he scored against us, that is not important. It is important you have someone who can go against the big guns and perform as he did today.”
A fair point, perhaps, but then Casemiro is already on his way to doing what Ince wants. There’s certainly an increasingly strong argument that he is United’s best holding midfielder since Roy Keane, with a similarly underrated passing game.
The Premier League title might be out of reach this season, but the Carabao Cup is within United’s grasp, the FA Cup presents an opportunity and maybe the Europa League too. United will be at Wembley next month but one of the headline acts will be the two-leg tussle between Casemiro and Frenkie de Jong, the midfielder Erik ten Hag wanted for so long and the one he ended up with.
That is slightly untrue, to be fair. United kept interest in Casemiro burning all summer and if money had been no object they could have been paired together. Given Barcelona’s ongoing financial problems, maybe they still will be at some point.
But Casemiro is doing both jobs at the moment. He’s tightened up United’s defensive structures and added tempo to their attack with the kind of probing forward passes we would have expected from De Jong.
As good as that aspect of his game has been this week, he has been allowed to run the show against two fundamentally limited teams. As Ince suggests, it is in games against United’s big six rivals where a defensive midfielder will ultimately be judged.
He is already starting to do that. He was excellent in the Old Trafford win against Tottenham and decisive a few days later at Stamford Bridge. He also played his part in January’s derby win against Manchester City.
He is yet to play against Liverpool but it’s the two big games he hasn’t played that perhaps prove Ince’s point and show how valuable he is on the grandest of occasions.
If Ten Hag had his time again he would start Casemiro ahead of Scott McTominay at the Etihad in October, when United were embarrassed and overrun. He would also take the midfielder off earlier at Selhurst Park, when his 80th-minute yellow card saw him suspended for the recent trip to Arsenal.
United were totally overrun at the Emirates and a 3-2 defeat flattered them. They clearly lacked Casemiro’s ability to halt attacks and disrupt the game. Arsenal were allowed to build up unstoppable momentum on several occasions throughout the match, but it’s hard to imagine opponents enjoying the same kind of territory against a side with Casemiro in it.
While Ince might want to see more from Casemiro, Keane has already seen enough and his take on the midfielder in the ITV studio suggested he’d been watching him closely this season.
“He's been a huge signing,” Keane told ITV. “Over the last few years for Man Utd, particularly in the middle of the park, they've lacked a quality player with a big personality, a guy with a bit of presence.
“He's a top-quality player. We see it week in, week out. He affects games.
“Before he came there was this perception he's a sitting midfielder because of working with different players at Real Madrid, players who are more attack-minded," said Keane. "But we're now seeing over the last few months he's got so much quality going forward in terms of the final pass and he's getting goals, as well as being very, very good defensively.
“A huge signing for Man Utd and a big personality, which Man Utd needed.”
He’s certainly been transformative for this side, and not just against Reading.
READ NEXT:
