Casemiro Responds to Carragher's Criticism Amid United Decline
Casemiro has finally answered Jamie Carragher’s brutal verdict on his Manchester United decline – and he did not bother to hide how deeply it cut.
The 34-year-old midfielder, speaking on the Rio Ferdinand Presents YouTube channel, opened up on the stinging criticism he received during United’s chaotic 2023-24 campaign, singling out the Sky Sports pundit for crossing what he felt was a basic line of respect.
Carragher had torn into Casemiro after United’s 4-0 capitulation at Crystal Palace, a night that came to symbolise the club’s unraveling season. On air, the former Liverpool defender claimed the game had “passed him by” and urged the Brazilian to quit top-level European football altogether.
His message was stark: the multiple Champions League winner should pack his bags for MLS or the Saudi Pro League, because his time at the elite level was over.
“The next two league games and the cup final, then he should be thinking, I need to go to the MLS or Saudi,” Carragher said back then. “This has to stop because we are watching one of the greats of the modern time. I always remember the saying ‘leave the football before the football leaves you’. The football has left him. At this top level, he needs to call it a day at this level and move.”
Those words followed Casemiro for the rest of the season. This week, he finally pushed back.
“So... it’s your opinion. I respect your opinion,” Casemiro replied. “I don’t like it because it’s disrespectful. It’s disrespectful to me.”
The clash was about more than one bad night in south London. It was about image, legacy and the ruthless spotlight that comes with wearing a United shirt when the team is falling apart.
Casemiro admitted that life at Old Trafford demands an iron mentality. The scrutiny, he said, can crush anyone who isn’t built for it. At his lowest ebb, he was being asked to solve problems that were not his to fix.
An injury crisis ripped through Erik ten Hag’s squad, and the veteran midfielder often found himself dragged away from his natural role at the base of midfield and pushed into defence. He estimates he played 12 to 15 matches at centre-back in his second season, firefighting in a patched-up back line while the criticism rained down.
“Everyone kills you because you’re not playing in your position,” he said. “But for me, it’s here [in the head]. It doesn’t matter. For me, it’s the head, the strong head.”
The timing only sharpened the narrative. Carragher’s comments came just weeks before Ten Hag left Casemiro out of the squad for the FA Cup final against Manchester City, a decision that fuelled the growing sense that the Brazilian’s time at United was coming to an end.
Left out of the biggest game of the season, watching his team lift the trophy without him, Casemiro suddenly looked like a player being quietly ushered towards the exit.
He doesn’t see it that way.
Despite the noise, he remains fiercely proud of what he delivered in Manchester. He helped United back into the Champions League, added both the Carabao Cup and the FA Cup to his collection and, in this turbulent season, still produced nine Premier League goals from midfield.
In his eyes, those numbers matter. They are his answer to those who wrote him off.
Having already lived through a high-profile departure once at Real Madrid, Casemiro believes he has learned when to walk away. He drew a clear parallel between leaving the Bernabeu and preparing to leave Old Trafford this summer.
“What I won in football, but, football changes. Life changes, life changes, so look now,” he said. “It’s about this. For me, the best thing in this moment we speak in Spain is I live in the big dark. I live in a good feeling. Everyone misses Casemiro. You know? About this, I decided to leave because I live in good. Because it’s the same in Madrid. Everyone misses me there. Everyone misses this team. Now, it’s the same. So, life changes.”
The message is clear beneath the slightly tangled English: he wants to leave while people still feel his absence, not when they are relieved to see the back of him.
He insists he is going “in a good feeling”, not chased out by critics or pundits, and certainly not accepting the idea that “the football has left him”.
United will move on, as they always do. Casemiro will, too. The question now is whether his next step proves Carragher right – or gives one of this era’s great midfielders the final word on his own career.
