The father figure who can be a naughty boy
An easy win turned into a gritty one when Casemiro was sent off
FIVE ASIDES Premier League: United 2, Palace 1
Another meeting with Palace, another ban for Casemiro. A man who is famous for not quite getting red cards finally ran out of luck. When it all kicked off in the 70th minute of this game, he was actually trying to dowse the flames, as the fan footage posted on Twitter shows. He placed his gloved hands on Will Hughes’s collar rather than round his neck, as the VAR assumed. His conduct wasn’t violent, let alone brutal, nor did he strike anyone, and as those are the three criteria mentioned in the law, the ban should have a good chance of being rescinded on appeal. But Casemiro was taking a big risk by putting his hands there in the first place. He won’t be able to tell the tribunal, ‘I didn’t lay a glove on him’. Just as it was silly of him to lunge into that tackle on Wilf Zaha two weeks ago, so it was silly to get swept into this fracas. Rapha Varane and Marcus Rashford both took a wiser route, putting their arms around the nearest Palace torso. Casemiro, usually a calming influence and a father figure, was so eager to restrain Hughes that he failed to restrain himself.
Maybe that fatherliness was the crux of the matter. The whole melee had begun with a gratuitous shove from Jeffrey Schlupp on Antony, who is Casemiro’s compatriot and eight years his junior. When Antony finally managed his first United assist with a nice simple ball against Reading last weekend, Casemiro (the scorer) hugged him and pointed to him to divert the credit. That protectiveness is admirable, until it tips over and a strength turns into a weakness. Now, if the ban is upheld, United will have to play three league games without their most central figure – and his partner in the pivot, Christian Eriksen. Come back McFred, all may be forgiven.
The fracas was followed by a curious spell in which Erik ten Hag did nothing, Bruno Fernandes tried to be Casemiro and Palace scored. United’s formation was 4-2-2-1, which was too easy to play through. In the Charlton stand we were pleading with Ten Hag to take Antony off and send Marcel Sabitzer on to stiffen the midfield. If somebody had to play in two positions at once, the obvious candidate was Fernandes, who had spent the past few weeks shuttling between his natural habitat at No 10 and the semi-wide slot on the right. Ten Hag eventually made the change in the 81st minute, whereupon this maddening episode turned out to have a silver lining. Sabitzer, despite being more of a creator than a destroyer by nature, played the situation and wrestled back the initiative. He occupied the centre circle, allowing Fred to get forward and help Rashford out near the corner flag. Within ten minutes of starting his United career Sabitzer had become a fan favourite. On second thoughts, McFred can wait.
United simply had to win this game after throwing away two points in the reverse fixture. It was a game of four phases: United dominated the first half without scoring in open play, then allowed Palace to be the better team for 15 minutes. Ten Hag responded by sending on Alejandro Garnacho down the left and moving Rashford to the middle, and both changes paid off instantly. Garnacho – just the boy the crowd wanted to see on the day of remembrance for the young stars lost at Munich – danced along the 18-yard line, exchanging one-touch passes with all and sundry. The last of them went wide to Luke Shaw, whose crisp low cross nutmegged a defender and found Rashford seven yards out. He played the shot of a man still in supreme form, opening up his right knee to side-foot sweetly past Vicente Guaita. United might well have gone on to make it 3-0 had it not been for the red card, which brought two more phases: total Palace dominance, and finally some backs-to-the-wall battling from United. The match ended with Ten Hag fielding a back five, like Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in a big game. It included four centre-backs in a row (Varane, Lisandro Martinez, Harry Maguire and Victor Lindelof) – five if you count Shaw, who did a fine job there in the derby.
Watching in person, you are more struck by the players’ physiques. There’s something in the way they move. Rashford runs like a thoroughbred, silky, effortless and of course rapid. Garnacho is not far behind, moving with ease and some authority for one so young. Wout Weghorst, by contrast, is a workhorse. Willing, dependable, ungainly, he does have certain things to offer – mainly hold-up play and headers. And he made a little progress here, acting as more of a spearhead rather than a false 10, after dropping so deep in recent games that his average position ended up somewhere behind Fernandes. But he has become the guy who always gets taken off, and when that happens, whether it’s Anthony Martial or Rashford who replaces him up front, the attack suddenly clicks. Alas, poor Weghorst: his face fits, but it’s hard to be so sure about his feet.
Tim de Lisle writes about sport for The Guardian and music for The Mail on Sunday. If you’re still on Twitter, do follow him and United Writing.