Former Manchester City defender Micah Richards has offered a defence of under-fire Manchester United midfielder Casemiro.
The Brazilian has barely played for Ruben Amorim since he joined the club in November but due to a plethora of injuries in the midfield area, he got his chance against Tottenham Hotspur.
The 32 year old has been heavily criticised when he has played this year as he is judged by many to lack the dynamism required to play in Ruben Amorim’s 3-4-3 formation.
The Portuguese boss is thought to have been frustrated with United’s inability to sell the player in this window but Casemiro has recently stated that he intends to see out the final 18 months on his deal at the Old Trafford club.
Speaking to the BBC’s Match of the Day 2 programme, pundit Richards raced to the defence of the former Real Madrid midfielder.
He admitted that “a lot of people are quick to blame Casemiro, but he needs help in there. His legs are not what they were, but he’s still got quality on the ball.”
The former Premier League defender also echoed Michael Owen’s critique of the passive nature of the United centre backs in the defeat and explained how this hurts the midfield.
“When you play three at the back, the whole point is [that] one of your centre-backs should engage. They don’t engage, then you had Spurs players in the pockets, and you had three centre-halves doing nothing. Three centre-halves marking one player.”
Richards also claimed that the Brazil international was hardly helped by his midfield partner Bruno Fernandes either.
“To top it off, look at the distance between Bruno Fernandes and Casemiro. They just didn’t get it right. Did he [Amorim] ask Bruno to play to the right?”
He defended Casemiro by saying that if Bruno is going to advance, then one of the defenders has to step up to cover but that he did not see any of this on display during the game.
Finally, he explained that to make Amorim’s system work the players need “to work together. Instead, they were working as individuals.”
Featured image Alex Pantling via Getty Images
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Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
