Casemiro will be no Schweinsteiger repeat

Karan Tejwani

• 22 Aug 2022 08:20 BST
• 4 min read

Manchester United and Real Madrid agreed a deal for the transfer of midfielder Casemiro last week, and he could make his debut for the club on Saturday against Southampton.

The Red Devils agreed a deal worth around £60 million, with a further £10 million in add-ons, and the Brazilian could be presented in front of the Old Trafford crowd before their match against Liverpool on Monday evening.

United have long been chasing a defensive midfielder, and they’ve got arguably the world’s best in that position, however, one person isn’t entirely convinced by the signing.

Tony Cascarino, the former Chelsea, Marseille and Gillingham player, spoke on TalkSport about the signing and compared it to that of Bastian Schweinsteiger, who Manchester United signed in 2015.

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Casemiro compared to Schweinsteiger

“A lot rests on his shoulders in terms of making a big improvement to the team. Casemiro can’t really run, he’s not a running midfielder so he needs legs around him for a start,” Cascarino said.

He continued: “If you’re going to buy Casemiro make sure you’ve got loads of energy and legs around him. The one thing you’ve heard about United the last few weeks is that they don’t run.”

Cascarino then added to that, believing that the squad around Casemiro benefited him a lot at Real Madrid, similar to how it did for Schweinsteiger when the German was at Bayern Munich before 2015.

He said, talking about Schweinsteiger’s brilliant Bayern career: “It reminds me a bit of Schweinsteiger. When Schweinsteiger was at Bayern he was a terrific

player.

“He came to Man United and his legs weren’t quite the same, maybe that’s harsh on Casemiro but Schweinsteiger needed legs in the team for him to shine and he never got going.

Of course, Schweinsteiger suffered from several injury problems in his final years at Bayern Munich, and that affected him even more at Manchester United, where he rarely played.

In contrast, Casemiro’s injury record hasn’t quite been the same, and fans can take encouragement from the fact that he already has a good relationship with Fred from the Brazil national team.

Cascarino believes Casemiro won’t make a big difference once he joins: “I don’t think he’s a player that’s suddenly going to hit the ground and make a huge amount of difference.

“The problem is they’ve got a lot of players who don’t want to run, his job is going to get even harder, you might see him get bypassed. Schweinsteiger got bypassed a lot at Man United and that team ran a lot more than this one does.”

Casemiro won’t be able to play against Liverpool as he won’t have completed the formalities of his signing in time, but could make his debut at the weekend.