Why Casemiro Is Man United's Most Important Player
Under Erik Ten Hag, Casemiro has become Manchester United's MVP. But most fans have missed the real reason why...
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00:00 Manchester United have just won in the FA Cup quarterfinal and are going to Wembley
00:07 again. That's good. But for precisely 72 minutes we're second best to Fulham and we're absolutely
00:11 going out. That's bad. Thankfully though I can illustrate the very small subtle tactical
00:16 tweak that happened which changed the game in their favour. Just look here, Fulham, they're
00:20 1-0 up, they've matched them up 4-2-3-1, they're defending really well, they're getting
00:24 the ball back, they're creating chances, they're probably going to get a second goal. But then,
00:28 we'll just highlight Mitrovic here and Willian there and there's Marko Slava on the touchline.
00:35 This happened.
00:36 And yeah, that'll do it. Don't get me wrong, you're a Man United fan, you've just won yet
00:55 another very important game in what appears to be a ceaseless run of very important games.
01:00 You probably do not care less about the how. But you're Eric Teng-Hard, you're a big bald
01:05 nerd who's paid incredibly well to figure these things out. You probably do care that
01:09 you played Fulham at home and had virtually no control of the game until you had a two-man
01:14 advantage. You will absolutely be trying to work that out.
01:16 I'll just skip to the good part here for both you and him if he's watching, which I presume
01:21 is not the problem, is in this area of the pitch here and specifically the enormous Casemiro-shaped
01:28 hole Man United had in their midfield. Now, I know what you're thinking, Casemiro, he's
01:31 been a revelation for Manchester United. Everybody knows this. They were a team that had virtually
01:35 no steel, no solidity, no heart in the centre of midfield. A lot of talent, a lot of ability,
01:40 etc. But they would lose midfield battles in so many games. That was the area that teams
01:45 throughout the league were convinced they could get at Man United in. And now, they
01:49 can't. Now, you don't lose that battle. And the reason for that, everybody knows, is because
01:54 Casemiro is an absolute bastard. Not in the Pepe sense or anything, don't get me wrong,
01:59 he's just really difficult to play against. He wins the ball back, he's determined, he's
02:03 good on the ball, he's the exact opposite kind of player you want to be up against in
02:07 that area of the pitch. His defensive contribution to Manchester United cannot be understated.
02:12 Everybody already knows this. Now, not to get you too excited, but in just a few moments,
02:15 I'm going to tell you why that is not the reason he is so badly missed. Why his defensive
02:19 contribution is amazing, yes, but its absence is not why Man United occasionally struggle
02:24 to control games. But we will quickly look at it first because I just want you to understand
02:28 how good it is. Alright, so the headline stat for Casemiro at Manchester United is that
02:32 per 90 minutes, he makes somewhere between five and six major defensive contributions.
02:38 Tackles or interceptions. Winning the ball back in a good area, he does that between
02:42 five and six times a game. I think he's exactly 5.5 per game across the entire season. And
02:46 you might be thinking, that's not an enormous number for somebody in that position. But
02:50 just to put it into context, the next nearest player on the team is Lissandra Martinez.
02:54 He does it just over three times per game. And then below that, everyone's sort of like
02:57 ones or two. So Casemiro roughly makes double the defensive contribution any other player
03:03 in a Man United shirt in 90 minutes. The really crazy stat is that he actually leads the team
03:08 as well for aerial duels won in all competitions. Like not the centre backs who have to deal
03:12 with crosses and corners, etc, etc. Casemiro wins the ball in the air more than any other
03:17 player playing for Man United. Dalot, Shaw, Martinez, Varane, they've all won the ball
03:20 back something like 30 odd times in the air this season. Casemiro has nearly done it 40
03:24 times. It might seem like a bit of an anomalous stat, but it proves there's something in his
03:28 positioning, something in his determination that is happening on purpose. So undeniably,
03:31 you're going to miss that kind of contribution from any player regardless of the opposition.
03:35 But and again, no disrespect to Fulham, it was Fulham at Old Trafford and Man United managed
03:39 to line up pretty much as close to full strength as they were going to in this competition.
03:43 Like we just look at the 11 they had out last night, you'd probably say Man United's strongest
03:46 team is mostly there. Like De Gea is there, it's kind of a coin toss at the minute between
03:50 Dalot and Wan-Bissaka. Shaw's undeniably the first choice left back. Varane and Martinez,
03:55 they've pretty much cemented themselves in that position. Then at the front, the positions
03:59 seemingly change all the time, but Sancho's come back in at the number 10. He's done really
04:02 well there. Veg Horst, yes, he has played around the place, but he's been leading the
04:05 line. Rashford's there, Fernandes is there. It's only really in the centre midfield that
04:09 you've got some kind of problem. Now, yes, Maguire had come in for Varane, but the reason
04:13 Man United weren't controlling the game wasn't because they were having loads and loads of
04:17 chances created against them. They were actually defending pretty well. This part of the pitch
04:20 here couldn't get anything going because at full strength, that is Christian Eriksen
04:25 and that is Casemiro. Whereas last night, that was Scott Mtominay and that was Sibitza.
04:30 Genuinely relatively good players. Sibitza got a very important goal. He's been pretty
04:33 good since he came in. Scott Mtominay gets way too much hate for what he's actually done
04:38 for that club, but crucially, they're just not those two. Now, the thing about Eriksen
04:41 is that people constantly shout that name in the street at me. But the other thing about
04:45 Christian Eriksen is he was brought in to add so much quality on the ball to this team,
04:49 to get it in any kind of position and then make that situation more dangerous. That's
04:54 what he does. Now, as a result, per 90 minutes, Christian Eriksen leads that Man United team
04:58 for progressive passes. And yep, some of you may be asking, what is a progressive pass,
05:03 Adam? How do you have an unprogressive pass? Well, I'll explain. So you know how some teams
05:07 are just full of little passing nerds and they get 99% pass completion and they do 400
05:12 passes a game, but it's all just duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. Nothing really interesting
05:15 happens with it. Well, progressive passes is a stat they came up with to kind of measure
05:19 the importance and the quality and the general thrust of the pass. It basically means any
05:24 pass that's not in your defensive third and progresses the ball around about 10 yards
05:29 closer to the opposition goal. Basically the kind of pass you always want your players
05:34 to make. Now it's not a perfect metric, like a 50 yarder into the channel will count exactly
05:39 the same as like a beautiful little 15 yarder that puts someone into goal and they score
05:43 from it. But nonetheless, when someone's on the ball, you want them to go forward, you
05:46 want them to advance the situation. That's what a progressive pass is. And Christian
05:49 Eriksen per 90 minutes makes more of those for Man United than any other player. But
05:54 the thing is, Christian Eriksen has been injured for ages and he's still got like at least
05:57 another month out at the time of me recording this video. So who is Man United's next most
06:02 progressive passer of the ball? Which of the front four here do you think compares to Eriksen?
06:08 Oh no, I've done a little tricksy. It's none of these four players at all. The next most
06:13 progressive passer of the ball for Man United is Casemiro. Yeah, more than Bruno Fernandes,
06:19 more than Marcus Rashford, more than Jadon Sancho, more than anybody else. Casemiro gets
06:24 on the ball in this part of the pitch and thinks, how can I progress this forward? How
06:29 can I force the opposition back? And that is how you control games of football. Now,
06:34 full disclosure here, the numbers are marginal between Fernandes and Casemiro and do actually
06:38 vary depending on where you go and look for them. But everywhere it's fairly consistent
06:41 that Eriksen leads the team with about six and a half progressive passes per game and
06:45 then Fernandes and Casemiro, they're both around the six mark. Now I know what you're
06:49 thinking that could just mean he's pumping it long into the channel. He's hitting this
06:52 area here and this area here. And while it is useful, it's not really making anything
06:56 happen. Is he getting into these sort of positions and playing those kind of passes or is he
07:00 getting somebody in behind here, etc? Is he doing stuff that actually leads to attempts
07:05 on goal? And yes, yes, he is. Second only to Bruno Fernandes, who I will tell you in
07:10 a minute is incredibly far ahead in the statistic. Casemiro is second in this team for passes
07:15 that lead directly to an attempt on goal. It's actually quite a funny stat, this one
07:18 like Shaw, Rashford and Sancho. They're all sort of like low 30s, early 40s. And Casemiro,
07:24 he's got like 45 of these passes across the entire season. And then Bruno Fernandes, anyone,
07:29 any guesses? Has over a hundred. So yeah, he's quite good. But Adam, I'm still not convinced
07:34 anybody can just pass it to a teammate who then just blares it into Rosette. Is there
07:38 any measure of the quality of these chances he's helping to create? And yes, yes, there
07:43 is. And again, Fernandes is way, way, way out ahead for this particular stat. But second
07:48 in this Manchester United team for expected assists, the number which measures the likelihood
07:53 these passes will lead directly to a goal is Casemiro. So just to really, really hammer
07:58 this point home here, why Casemiro has become so important to Man United. Yes, you take
08:02 that man out with a pitch and all of a sudden your defensive cover goes away. You lose the
08:06 majority of your tackles and interceptions every single game. Yes, that's bad. You don't
08:11 want that to happen. But you are also losing the second or third most creative player in
08:16 your entire team for taking the ball from any location on the pitch and putting it in
08:21 a more advantageous position. That is why you don't control games when you don't have
08:27 him in a team. I don't know how to put this any more plainly. Like Casemiro is an absolute
08:31 monster in this area of the pitch, but he also makes things happen in the Kenny Loggins
08:36 area in the danger zone. And this of course does create problems all of its own. No straight
08:41 red cards at Real Madrid ever. And now two in his first season at Man United. And why
08:45 could that be? Well, because when you're asking someone to take on so much work, the cracks
08:50 will eventually begin to show. Without Ericsson in that side, he's having to do so much more
08:55 of the work with progressing the ball as well as winning it back. And those two red cards
08:58 he's had, it's not really his fault. Well, I mean, obviously it was his fault. He did
09:02 make those challenges. He could have just not done that. I think he could talk his way
09:05 out of that. I think I could talk my way out of that. So, and the thing is with Ericsson
09:08 out for a while now and the fixtures continuing to pile up and pile up and pile up, it is
09:12 a lot to be asking of one player. But ask him, they're almost certainly going to have
09:17 to do regardless. Or I think, anyway, I don't know, it might be absolutely off my head.
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