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If ever there’s two match ups that Manchester United fans want to win, it’s against Manchester City and Liverpool. This weekend saw the first of United’s face offs against their Premier League rivals, costing Liverpool at Old Trafford.
Unfortunately for The Red Devils, it didn’t go their way on the day, with a 3-0 defeat at the hands of new manager Arne Slot.
Liverpool capitalised on any error made by the United men, with both of Luiz Dias’ goals coming from Casemiro errors, and Mohamed Salah’s goal resulting from a rare Kobbie Mainoo error. The Brazilian we ultimately replaced at half-time for youngster Toby Collyer who was earning his competitive debut for Manchester United.
After the game, regular pundits, Jamie Carragher, Gary Neville and Roy Keane were joined by Daniel Sturridge to reflect on the game, with a lot of talk about Casemiro’s performance. When discussing the veteran’s performance, a throwback to one of Carragher’s comments from last year showing him saying: “Leave the football before the football leaves you”.
Now, former United defender, Rio Ferdinand, has taken to his YouTube channel to reflect on Casemiro’s performance and criticise his former England teammate.
Speaking about the comments, Ferdinand said: “I heard Jamie Carragher say, ‘Leave the football before the football leaves you’, and I just think that’s highly disrespectful,”
Ferdinand continued: “I just think it’s really disrespectful, especially given what my man’s [Casemiro] won.
“There’s more to it than he’s just made a couple of mistakes. If you look at the two games before Liverpool [versus Fulham and Brighton], he’s been arguably Man United’s best player.
“I think it’s easier to say that he’s gone, he’s finished, he’s too old. I believe when I look at him, he’s being asked to do a lot of things like play 30-yard balls, dictate the pace. These are things Man United would never have recruited him for.
“He was never asked to do this at Real Madrid. He was cleaning up, security in front [of the defence], slide tackling, covering all the gaps and then giving it to other people to play football.
“But he’s being asked now to do things that he’s never done before, so he’s going to make mistakes because that’s not his natural game.”
This analysis from the former centre-back mimics a recent Talk of the Devils podcast from The Athletic where by they commented that sources close to Casemiro have claimed he hasn’t been happy with Erik ten Hag’s tactics saying they “didn’t play to his strengths, but exposed his weaknesses with him having to cover more ground.”
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