Are we a one man team? (And that man is Casemiro)

The Corinthian

I will not take Mad Winger's name in vain
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Seems like we can’t win or look a shell of ourselves when he’s not playing.

Are we that dependent on Cas?

I don’t have the stats to hand but it looks like we get overrun in midfield when he’s not on the pitch and struggle to keep the pressure on in the opponent’s half as well.

What say you?
 
No - but he is key to bringing out the best in every single other player on the pitch. Fred is pretty much Jekyll and Hyde without Casemiro.
 
We drew because we‘re missing 4 starters that include him, and one of his deputies in McTominay wasn’t even available.

That level of player absentees in any club would be felt in that match. Take Partey and Xhaka out of that Arsenal team (like Casemiro and Eriksen in ours) and they’ll struggle for sure and not look close to what they have been all season.
 
"One man team" is a bit daft when we have another player (Rashford, of course), who has already scored twenty goals across all competitions this season.
 
Come on. That's really harsh on Rashford. His importance to the team is quite close to Casemiro. Arguably, even more as we don't have any other reliable goalscorer.
 
No. We would've won that game with Eriksen instead of Fred.
 
We're not a one-man team but we're clearly very dependent on him. For all the talk of progress, particularly when it comes down to midfield control, a lot of that ultimately comes down to Casemiro's presence.
 
Our midfield was diabolical for years, barely top 10 level, Casemiro comes in and is the glue that fits other parts of the team together. Absolutely vital player and levels above other players in his position.
 
Casemiro is very integral to our team but lets be honest we were missing alot of players.

Casemiro, McTominay, Eriksen, Antony, Martial are all missing.

Say what you want about McT but we all back Ten Hag right? He thinks he is the 2nd choice DM this season and it is shown why Fred can't play there.
 
Of course not. We should have won that game yesterday. 2.3xG to their 0.68xG and they needed an OG. We weren't close to our best but it really wasn't that bad. Fred had a stinker but we were playing without 3-4 of our core players, 2 of which are our CM pairing and Rashford was on the wrong wing for half the game.

Sometimes feels like our fans look at the scoreline to decide how a game went. Garnacho should have had a goal and we would have won the game. Fred probably should have had a goal and we would have won the game. A little bit more luck at either end and we would have won the game.

Are we a better team with Casemiro? Massively so. Can we do fine without him. Of course.
 
The fact that you actually had to specify the player you're talking about kinda makes your point moot.
 
We had plenty of chances to score goals but a mixture of poor finishing, good blocks and bad decisions is what cost us. Another day we'd have scored a few more and no one would be talking about Cas being missing.

In case it gets misconstrued, Casemiro is a massive part of the team and we would miss him over a stretch of games but last night if he was their, our finishing wouldn't have been any better.
 
Not so much Casimero, he's a massive miss Eiksen as well, but no striker options or lack of with just Wout.
Martial hip injury again so he's no good get rid, I know the Greenwood Scenario is off topic but hes a Striker and we need one .
 
I'd say this season Casemiro and Rashford are our most important players, so without one of them we have problems.
The second tier of our most important players are Martinez, Varane, Shaw, Eriksen and Bruno.

Last night we had no Casemiro, Eriksen, Mct, Antony and Martial so a lot of a absentees. Also we had Fred playing for Leeds, Weghorst for nobody, Dalot coming back from injury and Sabitzer first match as a starter. No wonder we had so many issues.
 
Casemiro is our most important player, but we shouldn't have been so bad yesterday. Fred was doing his headless chicken act but Sabitzer was totally lost in midfield too so they made each other worse. Hopefully with a bit more time in the squad Sabitzer and Fred will learn how to play alongside each other, because without Casemiro they are our best two.
 
webbthepostie said:
No but we clearly lack MF depth.
Click to expand...
Bingo

We were also missing Eriksen and mctom. Bruno and Fred were both undisciplined yesterday as well.

Someone like Caicedo in the summer would be great because we'd have cover for casemiro and a potential brilliant midfield base for Bruno to do his thing.
 
You don't need a Casemiro level midfielder to beat Leeds that much is obvious.

We simply setup as if we still had the same quality in midfield. It was 1 Utd midfielder vs 5 Leeds players multiple times last night.

We've all seen that happen during the Ole era but Ten Hag probably still has some misplaced trust in his players. Without Casemiro and without Eriksen we'll need to make adjustments.
 
But you couldn’t ask for a greater man to be the face of the team!

If this is a praise Casemiro thread then I’m all in! he is magnificent.

But if it’s a thread to slag the United midfield off! then I’m out!
 
To a certain extent we are, we fully rely on him and hes by far our most important player.
 
No but we clearly are lightweight in attack and midfield, if we had either eriksen or casimero yesterday with sabitzer we would have looked a lot better but missing both and having to start with fred alongside sabitzer who has only just joined and needs to get up to speed with both his new teammates and the premier league is a tough ask.

The attack worries more, take rashford out and then we lose a big drop in attacking threat to the point of wondering where will our goals come from
 
I remember a lot of the Redcafe complaining about Casemiro being over the top and "theres a reason Real Madrid let him go". Now look at him.
 
When we've both 1st choice midfielders out, how does that make us a 1 man team?
With any of Martial, Casemiro and Eriksen available we'd most likely have gotten all 3 points.
Being reliant on Fred to hold the midfield alone isn't ever a good option he works hard but is prone to a lot of brainfarts.
 
So apparently, we don't drop points if we have Casemiro in the team? Palace say Hi.

If you are not going to finish your chances, we can have 3 Casemiro's in the team, we wont win.
 
Nah. Casemiro IS the key member in our team because he orotects defence and starts attacks (which McT or Fred can't do it on dmc position) but our main problem is light attack.
We depend completely on Rashford. Martial is always injured, Antony is not game changer, Garnacho is not there yet, Wout is just a body.
We need Sancho back in form.
 
Two man team, Casemiro and Rashford.
I stated just after CP game that I'm very pessimistic about the next 3 games and can easily see us dropping 4 points. This guy takes us to next level in every department.
Doesn't help that we're putting typical #8s in #6 position because we have no cover for Casemiro.
 
I'd say that Casemiro, Eriksen, Bruno and Rashford are our four most important players*, simply because the drop off in quality of the players backing them up is so enormous. Although it weakens us, we can manage with one of those four out, but with more than one out, we'll struggle to pick up wins. If we want to finish top 4, it's vital that we keep these four fit (and available) for the remainder of the season.

*Martinez and Varane are great too, but Lindelof is a reasonable backup.
 
Borys said:
Two man team, Casemiro and Rashford.
I stated just after CP game that I'm very pessimistic about the next 3 games and can easily see us dropping 4 points. This guy takes us to next level in every department.
Doesn't help that we're putting typical #8s in #6 position because we have no cover for Casemiro.
Click to expand...

5 man team, we need Varane, Marty and Shaw too.

Edit; 6 man team, forgot Bruno.
 
To say we are a one man team is over the top. However the midfield is fecked without him. No doubt! Leeds went through our midfield like a knife through butter last night. That wouldn't have happened with Casemiro. The big problem last night was we had too many passengers.
Bruno, Martinez, Varane, Rashford, Shaw, Casemiro. = 5 man team
If Fred carries on with performances like that we're a 4 man team!
 
It is both true they we easily win that game with Casemiro but also should win it 9/10 times without him. Created enough chances, they scored a shot from range in the 1st minute and an og. Casemiro increases our consistency, takes chaos out of our games defensively by stopping their transitions, helps increase pressure. Hell we just need an average DM to be cover for him, but we have no other DM is the reason why we struggle without him so much. If we had a like for like replacement who just wasn't as good but could fill the role, that'd be fine.
 
He’s been described as the glue to hold the team together and I think that’s quite accurate! Without him we play like headless chickens- gaps all over the place! We desperately need another defensive midfielder in the summer to cover for his absence! I’d like to see Caciedo brought in!!
 
Like many have said, we're definitely not a one man team but we are a lot better with him in the squad and the cover that we have in place should he not be free just isn't up to scratch. The same could be said for Rashford at the moment.

We're basically need to replace the likes of McT with someone like Caisedo who can either play alongside or instead of Casemiro. That way should Fred need to play, and he's not been bad at all lately, it wouldn't be as a holding midfielder to replace Case which he just can't play in a high press opposition.

And the obvious elephant in the room is to get a number 9 in asap too. I'd be very happy if we get in Frenkie & Caisedo plus a striker and we'd be so much better suited to rest our top players.
 
Casemiro is an integral part of how we play.
Rashford is goals
Varane is an integral part in how we defend
Martinez is an integral part of our spirit and defence

Yesterday was less about Casemiro & more about not taking more than 2 of the 20 plus chances we had.
 
We are 100% a one man midfield. Soon as he's out it looks like a shithouse again.
 
It was just one of those games. Sucker-punched in the first minute and an OG just after half time, against a team that just sacked their manager. It's just one you have to take on the chin and move on.

We lacked a lot of composure in the middle, with both Fred and Bruno a bit of a calamity on the ball. I thought Sabitzer did quite well and he'll be just fine in there beside Casemiro while Eriksen is out.

It's quite clear to me that Rashford is our best winger and centre forward at this moment and time. Playing Garnacho and Weghorst and shunting Rashford on the right was a really odd call from ETH and I hope we never see that again.

Sancho - Rashford - Antony should be our starting front 3. I think if we had Eriksen or McTominay to start alongside Sabitzer we probably should have won it (even though I don't rate McTominay at all, he at least is a bit more composed and a decent battler in games like that one).

In short, we missed Casemiro, but on another night we could have easily won that one. He's just as equally important as Rashford and Martinez in my eyes.
 
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