Manchester United interim manager Michael Carrick has made clear there will be no contract extension for Casemiro, a decision that is expected to be final. Matheus Cunha, a teammate for both club and country, echoed those pleas on social media after the game, but Carrick has warned supporters not to get their hopes up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty clear,\u201d Carrick stressed. \u201cFrom both sides, it\u2019s pretty clear, the decision,\u201d said the interim manager. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty clear, too, how much it means to him [playing for United] and probably the situation and the clarity of the decision has helped \u00adeverything to be understandable for the \u00adsupporters as well. <\/p>\n
\u201cCredit to him because he\u2019s given absolutely everything and had some big moments for us, so all round it\u2019s quite a nice direction for it to be taken.\u201d<\/p>\n
A year ago the idea of losing Casemiro was not exercising United supporters. The Brazilian had struggled to get to grips with Ruben Amorim\u2019s methods and would likely have been sold last summer if his high wage demands were not tied down by poor performances. That narrative has turned completely this season. Casemiro began a resurgence under Amorim and finished it under Carrick, emerging as a blend of box-crashing and defensive solidity that has been vital to United\u2019s climb into the race for Champions League qualification.<\/p>\n
United had wanted to invest heavily in midfield last summer and those plans stayed in place even as Casemiro rediscovered form. Now his departure is confirmed and the priority shifts: replacing Casemiro has arguably become more important than finding the complimentary piece once sought alongside him. The bar feels almost impossibly high. United will likely look for a younger signing but must find one capable of matching Casemiro\u2019s impact, leadership and reliability. The number of suitable options can be counted on one hand.<\/p>\n
Towards the top of the wish list are Nottingham Forest\u2019s Elliot Anderson and Newcastle United\u2019s Sandro Tonali. Both are expected to be spectacularly expensive and both have big-name suitors prepared to engage in bidding wars. Settling for an alternative may make sense commercially, but United cannot afford to lose Casemiro\u2019s immediate impact. They must continue to shop at the top tier and be prepared to pay up. With whatever money is left, the club should pick up the pieces; Kobbie Mainoo is back shining in midfield, softening the need for a second costly reinforcement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Carrick rules out new contract for Casemiro as United prepare costly midfield rebuild. amid overhaul<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,1513],"tags":[1021,939],"class_list":["post-13253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","category-man-utd-transfer-news","tag-amorim","tag-casemiro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}