‘Leave the football before the football leaves you’
Jamie Carragher has said Casemiro should “know that he should only have another three games left at the top level” after Manchester United’s humiliating 4-0 defeat at Crystal Palace.
United were thrashed at Selhurst Park on Monday night, the latest result in a season of disappointments for Erik ten Hag’s side.
Due to injuries, Ten Hag was forced to play midfielder Casemiro as a centre-back in a makeshift back four, and the Brazilian endured one of his most difficult games in a United shirt.
The 32-year-old couldn’t handle the pace and skill of Palace’s star duo Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise, with stats showing he was dribbled past a staggering eight times – the most for any player in a Premier League game this season.
After the game, Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher said he thought it was time for the United man to accept that his time at the “top level” of football is over.
He said: “I think Casemiro should know tonight that he should only have another three games left at the top level. The next two league games and the cup final, then he should be thinking, I need to go to the MLS or Saudi.”
Casemiro is a five-time Champions League winner and was a key part of the Real Madrid side who won the competition three years in a row from 2016 to 2018.
Carragher described the midfielder as “one of the greats of the modern game” and said he was “too good of a player to be putting in a performance like that.”
“His agent or the people around him need to tell him that this has to stop because we are watching one of the greats of the modern time who played in one of the best midfields we’ve seen, who dominated Europe,” he said. “So he’s been an absolute great.”
“But I always remember something when I retired myself, the saying ‘leave the football before the football leaves you’. The football has left him. At this top level, he needs to call it a day at this level and move.”
“The level of that player, he should not be putting himself through this. He is too good of a player to be putting in a performance like that being laughed at by Crystal Palace. He needs to call it a day.”
Casemiro joined United in August 2022 for a reported fee of £60 million. He signed on a four-year deal, meaning he still has two years left on his contract at Old Trafford.
The Brazilian impressed in his first season, and was named player of the match in the Red Devils’ League Cup final win against Newcastle.
However, he’s looked a shadow of his former self this season, and has struggled along with the rest of the United side.
The defeat at Crystal Palace was United’s 13th in the league this season, a Premier League record for the club.
They now sit eight in the league with three games to go, and in very real danger of missing out on European football altogether.
The Manchester club sit two points behind Newcastle in sixth and a further four behind Spurs in fifth.
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