Summer Mailbag! What Ten Hag is building, Casemiro, and what the next few years may look like

Filling the dead time in the summer by answering your questions!

Jul 13, 2023

Welcome to the summer mailbag. Thanks to everyone for submitting your questions, they were really great. I’ll try to get to as many as I can.

I believe that Man Utd are unlikely to bring in more than 2 high-quality players during this window due to the complicated financial situation we find ourselves in. This would mean that we have to work with what we have, and this will impact on outflows as well.
So my question is what do you think Ten Hag's options are with regards to evolving the squad tactically with exactly the same players? Does Rashford move permanently to #9 to maximize the excess of wide players? Is Mainoo forced to play in midfield whether or not he is ready? Does Bishop become our new #1? Does Maguire remain in the squad by necessity?
- Jeremiah

Ok so I kinda cheated. This question was submitted at the end of June, when United hadn’t signed anyone yet. By the time I’m writing this, things are a bit different.

So I think there’s a difference between “high-quality” players and more well known expensive players. I personally think it’s better that United have to look for more value this summer and there’s still plenty of quality to find without paying the most expensive fees.

As to how Ten Hag can evolve the team. Well the good news is he’s not using exact same players. Mason Mount has already arrived. It’s certainly looking like Andre Onana is right behind him, and it’s still early but Rasmus Hojlund seems to be trending in the right direction.

Regardless of who comes, David de Gea has confirmed that he’s left the club. That right there is the biggest change. A goalkeeper who can play with his feet opens up so many doors for United. They should be better in buildup, they should be a bit more press resistant, they won’t have to defend as deep.

Even if Hojlund arrives, Rashford should start the season as the number 9. He’s just that creative a player on the left wing, but more importantly, there’s Alejandro Garnacho. We’re all excited about this kid, we all want to see him get a chance. Well to give him chances you need minutes on the left wing available for him.

I’d love to see Mainoo play a bit more but if he’s not ready Erik Ten Hag has made it clear he’ll run the same guys out there week after week. Maguire is an interesting one. You have to take everything a manager publicly says about a player with a grain of salt, but Ten Hag spoke differently about him then he did anyone else. I don’t think Maguire would be sticking around out of necessity. With a new GK coming in and likely a new style of play, there’s probably a spot for Maguire on this team, it’s a matter of whether he’s ok playing as an RCB, which is something he struggled with even when he first arrived at United. If Maguire sticks around, it wouldn’t shock me to see him play more than he did last season.

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I think Casemiro was a big reason we finished 3rd + won the league cup. Given his performances, would you say he was a good signing despite his age + fees?
- Yen

That’s million dollar question - or I guess the £60 million question isn’t it?

Everyone is always in such a rush to grade a signing - making judgements on them after just a few months let alone a whole season - that everyone always forgets the core tenant about squad building and signings. Signings are very rarely made for this year. A new signing is someone who will be a piece of the puzzle this year, and make you a better team next and the year after.

Whenever a club is about to make a signing they should always be asking themselves, “does this player make us better two years from now? What about three years from now?” If the answer to that question isn’t emphatically yes then you should ask, “are we in the exceptionally rare situation where this player is the one missing piece standing between us and league title this season?” If the answer to that question isn’t yes, you shouldn’t sign the player.

That’s where things get dicy with Casemiro.

Casemiro just had one of the best - and most exciting - seasons any United player has had in recent memory. He was the biggest influence behind their transformation and practically put the team on his back in the League Cup final.

But what did you sign Casemiro for?

The answer can’t be ‘a top four finish and a League Cup.’ If it is, you spent way too much money on that.

United signed Casemiro on a five year contract, so they’re thinking long term rather than what are you doing for us this season? With David de Gea gone, Casemiro now is reportedly United’s highest earner, indicating they see him as a crucial member of the team over the lifetime of that contract.

However they signed Casemiro when he was 30 years old. All the data suggests that you should expect his best season for United to be his first season. In that first season the Brazilian started just 24 Premier League matches and played only 62 percent of the available minutes. Despite that, Casemiro just 82 fewer club minutes last season than the highest total of his career1 for a United side that asked him to do a lot more - and cover a lot more ground - then he’d been asked to do earlier in his career.

It was no surprise that Casemiro’s performances dipped towards the end of last season as he played on his last legs. It’s a safe assumption that his legs this year won’t be as good as last year and his legs next year won’t be as good as they are this year.

The question is, what is Casemiro offering you in the 2024-25 season2? Will he still be able to play at this level? A smart club would already be thinking of bringing in Casemiro’s successor (and the links to Sofyan Amrabat suggest United might be thinking about this) but if Casemiro is more of a rotation player the last two or three years of his contract… £375k/wk is a lot of money to be spending on your bench.

Ultimately that’s what it’s going to come down to. If Casemiro amortized transfer fee and wages prevents United from signing someone else over the next few years - be it a replacement for him or just someone to fill a different hole in the squad - that’s a problem. Especially if United still aren’t bringing home the big trophies.

So is Casemiro a good signing? We won’t truly know for another three or four years.

Hi. Could you talk about what you think the plan is for how ETH wants this team to play. Not necessarily the style, but in terms of profiles he wants. United seem to be moving from one profile to another. From FDJ to Casemiro, from wanting De Gea to stay to wanting a new goalkeeper. Thank you
- Raphael

This is a really good question. We can ignore the flip flopping on De Gea3 but there’s definitely some questions here.

I can justify the pivot from FDJ to Casemiro. You have an idea of how you want to build your team, one player is pivotal to that idea, and when you can’t get him you move on to a different idea. That makes sense, but then why sign Antony as well?

Casemiro is someone that’s going to help you launch counter attacks. He fits next to players like Bruno Fernandes and Marcus Rashford. United launched a lot of counters this year. They scored more goals from counter attacks than any other Premier League season since 2008-09.

As we saw, Antony was not so good on counter attacks. His one footedness often slowed down and ruined these chances.

Antony is more of a guy that needs possession and overlapping fullbacks to be at his best. It’s a bit counter intuitive to sign someone like him and someone like Casemiro in the space of a few days.

I think Mason Mount (and possibly Onana) provides more clarity on what direction Ten Hag wants to go in. We’re certainly looking for more possession and control in games, I just question how much control you’re going to get with Bruno and Casemiro in midfield, or how effective Rashford will be if United become less direct.

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As this current squad is getting a bit old and has some holes in it, what do the next 4 transfer windows look like to United, assuming ETH keeps his job during that time.
- John

This is a difficult question because in just one year it’s become obvious that Erik Ten Hag sees a “long term plan” differently than I would see a long term plan. Therefore I can’t speak of what things will actually look like to United, but here’s what I would be looking at if I were the one running United.

Obviously things change over time so we’re basing this off right now. I’ll also note the players these areas should be replacing where applicable.

Summer 2023

Mount (CM) - Eriksen replacement/upgrade
GK
ST
CM - Casemiro backup
Backup GK

January 2024

Target a young player who takes the second half of the season to settle in, and is ready for next year. Position doesn’t matter. This should be done every January, it never is.

Summer 2024

Right back
Center back (Varane getting old, surely one of Maguire/Lindelof will have left by then)
CM - Eriksen/Fred/McTominay replacement
/1A Hopefully this is #4 and you’re looking at a rotation player because Hojlund arrived and is the real deal. If not, this is probably #1
CM/CB - You’re probably going to need another one of at least one of these

January 2025

That young player again. Only this time you should probably have your eye on someone who can be a Bruno replacement.

That’s the rough outline. Obviously it changes and some academy players can possibly step in to those roles, but you can’t bank on that. For as many promising players as there are remember United’s academy ain’t that great, and academy players rarely make it. If just two of this crop become first team players that’s phenomenal.

The one complicated area is right back. I think if United are going to take the next step under Ten Hag, they’re going to need someone better than Diogo Dalot.

Seems simple but it never is. We know Dalot is better on the ball than Wan-Bissaka, yet by the end of last season it looked as if Wan-Bissaka had jumped ahead of Dalot in the pecking order4, with Wan-Bissaka getting the call in nine of United’s final 10 Premier League matches. Here’s the thing, Dalot just got a new contract and if the breakdown in playing time this year is anything like it was in the second half of last year, it’s impossible to see a scenario where Wan-Bissaka doesn’t get a new contract5. If that’s the case, you’re probably not getting a new right back.

Kwest Thoughts