Casemiro joined Manchester United in the summer from Real Madrid for £70 million on a four-year deal.
The Brazilian international had started only one game for Manchester United, which was in the Europa League against Sheriff Tiraspol.
There were calls for Erik Ten Hag to start Casemiro ahead of Scott McTominay in the Manchester derby against Manchester City after impressing with the Brazilian National Team whilst on international duties. But Ten Hag kept the same starting lineup that had won him four Premier League wins in a row.
However, Rio Ferdinand had insisted that the five times Champions League winner will feel disrespected by Erik Ten Hag after coming on as a substitute at the time Manchester United were down by 5-1.
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What did Rio Ferdinand say?
The Manchester United legend said on his YouTube channel, Vibe with Five: “Casemiro’s another one, he’s sitting there going, ‘I’ve won five Champions Leagues with this team.
“I’ve heard people today say, ‘if he plays, he needs legs around him, he can’t play with Eriksen and Bruno. This geezer played with two snails in Modric and Toni Kroos—he just knows his way around a football pitch.
“He is a fantastic defensive midfielder, one of, if not the best, in the world before he came to Man United.
“When it was suggested that Casemiro’s form for United meant he should not have started ahead of McTominay for the game against City, Ferdinand replied: ‘You can’t say that.
“The geese haven’t been given a chance; he hasn’t been given a fair crack of the whip. He’s come in and played in a Europa League game against some dead team.
“He isn’t been given a start in the team when he’s fit and ready. He’s regressed in terms of fitness, so he’s now worse off than when he came. He still had to get up to speed when he came from that league to this league.
“I wonder the impact it’s having on someone like him. Yes, he’s experienced and whatnot, but he must be sitting there thinking, ‘wow, I’m happy to be here at Man United but I’m feeling a little bit disrespected here, given what I’ve done. I’d be surprised if he’s not feeling like that.
“I think we will [see Ronaldo and Casemiro play], but I think it’s the context of what games they’re playing in—they could be playing midweek Europa game. That won’t sit well with them.
‘They’d be sitting there going, ‘wow, I’m like the Rumbelows Cup player right now, the Carabao Cup player’.
“These are the sub-plots to what Ten Hag has to deal with. This is what management is about. He’s got to manage that type of player, that type of ego, the pride that comes with these types of players. If you’re not playing, you’ll see a difference in the way they look at you now, and that’s what you’ve got to manage.
“He didn’t have those problems at Ajax with the players he had. He was very much in control, the master of the universe there. Here you’ve got big egos to deal with, and this is the task when you come to a top club.”
