Man Utd’s Casemiro and Eriksen look like a short-term solution to a long-term problem

Manchester United are under the microscope in just about every part of the pitch at the moment.

The goalkeeper who arrived this summer with a reputation for playing expertly with his feet is under scrutiny for how he uses his hands. The defence that conceded the joint-third fewest goals in the 2022-23 Premier League has allowed 14 in the new season’s opening six games in all competitions. Up front, an attack that’s short on goals is also struggling to meet manager Erik ten Hag’s demands on what to do out of possession.

Yet attention should also fall upon a midfield that is failing to adequately protect that defence and ’keeper Andre Onana and struggling to adequately supply that attack, particularly after a 4-3 defeat to Bayern Munich in last night’s Champions League group-stage opener at the Allianz Arena where they were regularly and routinely bypassed.

Midfield was the glaringly obvious area in need of improvement upon Ten Hag’s appointment after the 2021-22 season, hence the club’s long-winded and ultimately unsuccessful pursuit of Barcelona’s Frenkie de Jong, who used to play there for the manager at Ajax.

Despite that failure to secure their Ten Hag’s priority target, the sense last season was that these problem positions in the middle of the park had finally been filled. Denmark’s Christian Eriksen was the first addition — a player of grace and creativity who had successfully reinvented himself in a deeper-lying role having turned 30 earlier that year.

He was joined, at a much greater expense, by Brazil international Casemiro — arguably the outstanding holding midfielder in European football for Real Madrid during a time when United had lacked that exact profile. A £70million ($86m at current rates) fee and a four-year contract for another 30-year-old on wages among the highest in the squad reflected both his pedigree and the club’s need for a player in his mould.

Both Casemiro and Eriksen were plus points of Ten Hag’s debut season, defying concerns about their ages, and came to form his undisputed first-choice midfield partnership.

Yet on United’s return to this rarefied level of Champions League football — one that a club of their size, stature and (most of all) spending should feel comfortable at — in Germany last night, they looked like a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

Eriksen’s inclusion in the team over Scott McTominay came as a slight surprise given the out-of-possession demands that facing Bayern away brings — demands the Dane never fully met. Eriksen did not make a single successful tackle or interception in his 69 minutes on the pitch, according to FBref.com, and was equally disappointing and ineffective on the ball.

The same was not entirely true of Casemiro, and it may seem harsh to criticise a player who came away having scored twice in a madcap 4-3 defeat, but even a record of three goals in these first six games struggles to mask the overall drop-off in his displays defensively this season.

Hooked for one 20-year-old (Hannibal Mejbri, who has one Premier League start to his name) after an hour of the weekend’s 3-1 defeat at home to Brighton, with United 2-0 down at the time, he was regularly beaten and bypassed by another last night in the form of the mesmeric Jamal Musiala.

At one point during the second half, a visibly tired and tormented Casemiro came over to the touchline for a drinks break wearing a thousand-yard stare, looking more than a little frustrated with how his evening was going.

Although a narrative took hold after the first few games of the season that he was suffering from a lack of protection, it has been striking just how often Casemiro has taken up advanced positions deep in opposition territory without sufficient cover behind, leaving United exposed to the counter-attack.

Failing to track late runners into the penalty area has been another common thread through the 14 goals United have conceded. For Bayern’s second, Serge Gnabry evaded Casemiro’s attentions to arrive unmarked inside the box, getting his shot away before a retreating Eriksen could catch him up and make a challenge.

The overarching impression from the game was that, despite helping drag United back to this very highest level last season, now that they are there, the Casemiro-Eriksen pairing leaves something to be desired. Alternatives are neither immediately available nor obvious, though, and United’s well-documented issues at right-wing are a factor in all this.

Ten Hag had little choice but to ditch the diamond formation brutally exposed by Brighton, so he turned to the only natural right-winger available. Facundo Pellistri has impressed in cameos as a substitute against stretched and tired defences but the second start of a three-year Old Trafford career did not provide compelling evidence the 21-year-old is ready to regularly play from the off.

With Antony unavailable for the foreseeable future and no end to the Jadon Sancho saga in sight, if Ten Hag is to persist with the 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 shape which led to modest success last season, the most likely alternatives are players who are needed in the midfield three.

For now, it will have to be Bruno Fernandes. It could soon be summer signing Mason Mount when he fully recovers from injury, given he arguably played the best football of his career in a similar position on the way to winning the 2020-21 Champions League with Chelsea. Either of those options would displace one member of Ten Hag’s first-choice midfield, forcing him to stand by others who have an increasing number of doubts around them.

Whether Sofyan Amrabat, another newcomer, can settle in quickly and offer more security in midfield already feels like a question that could define United’s start to the season. The insistence on an option rather than an obligation to buy while negotiating Amrabat’s loan from Italian club Fiorentina hints that even Old Trafford’s key decision-makers are not entirely sure of the answer yet.

Amrabat is just one option, though. United do not have the same dearth of these in the middle of the park as they do wide on the right. McTominay could easily return to the side away to Burnley on Saturday, although whether partnering him with Casemiro offers enough in possession is a fair question.

Mount is back in training, at least, while 18-year-old Kobbie Mainoo is starting work again too following an ankle injury during the pre-season tour in the U.S. and being primed for more first-team minutes. It is more a case of finding the right combination rather than looking around for potential further additions in January.

But after patching up United’s age-old midfield issues with Casemiro and Eriksen last year, that area of the pitch — like several others — suddenly feels like a problem again.

(Top photo: Christof Stache/AFP via Getty Images)