Guard dog with a difference: Casemiro silences doubters to lift Old Trafford

T here was a funny moment shortly after Casemiro had completed his transfer to Manchester United from Real Madrid last August when he was asked about one of the many new things he would have to get used to – namely no Champions League football. Was it something that bothered him? “Well, I have five,” he replied, that familiar cherubic smile spreading across his features.

The question could have been put more bluntly. What on earth was Casemiro, who had just won his fifth gong in Europe’s elite competition, who had almost turned it into his personal playground, doing coming to United, the fallen Premier League giants?

And yet it cut both ways. Why were United, at the start of a rebuild under Erik ten Hag, signing a 30-year-old for £60m rising to £70m and putting him on a lucrative four-year contract with the option of a fifth? Surely Madrid do not sell players that they count on? Moreover, everybody knew which midfielder Ten Hag had wanted and it was Barcelona’s Frenkie de Jong, who is more playmaker than destroyer.

When it became clear that United would not get De Jong, and the truth was that he could not have been clearer from the outset about not wanting to move, the club sounded out Adrien Rabiot at Juventus. And then, bang, they got Casemiro.

“I’m surprised, I have to be honest,” Peter Schmeichel, the Old Trafford goalkeeping great, said at the time. “Because Casemiro hasn’t been mentioned at all through the window. Also, if you are No 6 for Manchester United, you are supposed to drive and take part in the game.

“Ten Hag says he wants to be in possession and control the game, and he wants to put pressure on the ball. That’s a big difference from La Liga. And even playing in the Champions League. I’m surprised that