With the signing of Casemiro, Manchester United have finally signed the fabled but rarely seen defensive midfielder they have been missing for the last five years. It's understood that the midfielder will cost £60m + £10m in addons and will not be available for the club's game against Liverpool on Monday.
The deal isn't great; United have basically refunded the £85m that Real Madrid spent on Casemiro's replacement Aurelien Tchouameni this summer. He is also nearly 31 and joining on high wages over the course of a four-year deal, with the option for the club to extend his contract by a further year.
But while this deal doesn't really make sense in the long term, in the short-term United are getting an excellent player and Erik ten Hag is getting a destroyer in midfield who can help the team protect against transitions and win the ball back higher up the pitch. He is a signing that 'secures the floor rather than raises the ceiling.
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These 'floor securers' are signings that United need to make. You would hope that with someone like Casemiro in the side they would never face the embarrassment of losing 4-0 to Brentford ever again, but while the Brazilian does add stability, he does have question marks over him that the club need to address.
At Real Madrid, Casemiro played in a midfield trio that included Luka Modric and Toni Kroos, some of the best players in possession the world has ever seen. But this means that the Brazilian was only tasked with keeping it simple; he didn't regularly progress the ball up the pitch or play a crucial role while the Spanish side had control of the ball.
United currently don't have any players that fit the mould. Fred seems like the natural choice given that he and Casemiro play together for the Brazilian national team, but even there that partnership has been shaky in the past, and while Christian Eriksen is an excellent passer and could and has played a deeper role, relying on two midfielders the wrong side of 30 seems like a recipe for disaster.
The irony is that the perfect midfield partner and also the player that many United fans said needed a defensive midfielder to thrive, Paul Pogba, has left this summer on a free transfer. This is something that must be addressed while the window is still open.
United must return to the transfer market this summer to find Casemiro a partner who he can support while they 'raise the ceiling'. The perfect player for this would be Frenkie de Jong, but given the club's huge outlay on the Real Madrid midfielder, it seems unlikely now that they would be able to secure Ten Hag's number one target as well.
The player must be able to progress the ball up the field on a regular basis to stop United from becoming trapped in their own half while being able to consistently find United's attacking and creative options in good positions to bring them into the game. Jadon Sancho has especially suffered from this in the last few games, looking isolated with no support and therefore being ineffective.
Casemiro on top of United's defensive signings of Lisandro Martinez and Tyrell Malacia forms a good foundation for the rest of the team to be built on. Now the club need to build the team on top of them.
With less than two weeks till the end of the transfer window, United don't have a lot of time to work with given that teams will be reluctant to part ways with their star assets with football back in full swing. But if they are going to have any chance of success under Ten Hag, they can't afford to let that get in the way.
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