Southampton manager Ruben Selles refused to criticise Erik ten Hag for defending Casemiro after his red card against Saints on Sunday afternoon, but says people have overlooked how his side performed in that 0-0 draw at Old Trafford as a result.
For the second time since his summer move, former Real Madrid powerhouse Casemiro was sent off to leave United a man down against their rock-bottom opponents. However, the decision required VAR intervention as on-field referee Anthony Taylor initially only deemed the offence to be yellow card worthy.
Casemiro will now miss the next four domestic games and the influential midfielder is also walking a European tightrope - where he is one booking away from suspension - but Selles reckons there has been too much focus on the 31-year-old in the aftermath of his challenge on Carlos Alcaraz.
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Asked if he was surprised by Ten Hag's reaction to the red card, Selles said: "We all have our thoughts and we have our reaction. I was more surprised everyone was talking about the red card and they don't talk about our performance as that was the biggest point for me.
"Nobody praised us to make that game competitive even 11 against 11 to play face-to-face against Manchester United at Old Trafford. We had chances to win that game. We were good and we performed well.
"I think the history of Casemiro and all the things around that game went into that way, but I thought that the performance of my team [was good] and, generally, people have not been fair with how we played that game, so I will not comment about Erik [ten Hag] or what anyone from Manchester United did. I will say we did a good game. We did a good performance."
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