Manchester United duo Kobbie Mainoo and Christian Eriksen have been accused of catching the ‘Casemiro bug’ after their below-par displays in the Red Devils’ 1-1 draw with Burnley on Saturday. Tim Sherwood believes Mainoo and Eriksen are guilty of not running as much as they can during matches.
United fell to yet another dismal result with Erik ten Hag doing little to convince INEOS that he deserves to remain in the job beyond the summer. Zeki Amdouni’s late penalty sealed a point for relegation-threatened Burnley after Antony had given United the lead at Old Trafford.
Sherwood was disappointed by the performance of Ten Hag’s side and believes that even some of their better players have fallen foul of what he believes is a bad ‘culture’ within the club. The 55-year-old singled out Mainoo and Eriksen for not running enough, and compared them with the under-performing Casemiro.
“It was another bad performance. Another performance without any style or playing identity. No DNA, which Dan Ashworth will be looking for when he comes in and Jason Wilcox,” Sherwood told Sky Sports.
“They’ve got their work cut out there, that’s for sure. They need to see a playing identity. Ten Hag has not just come into the job, he’s been there long enough. He has his own players.
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“I can’t see what they do. In possession, they are all about moments and out of possession they are a shambles. They really are. The worrying thing is that the midfield does not run, when the ball gets played behind them their heads start wobbling.”
Sherwood was pressed on that theory before delivering a brutal assessment of the performances of Mainoo and Eriksen. The former Tottenham manager, who coached Eriksen in North London, continued: “That’s down to the manager telling them and identifying it. Kobbie Mainoo, I really like him, but he has caught the Casemiro bug where he is jogging around the pitch.
“Christian Eriksen is the same – he is one of the most honest players you’re ever going to find. I think it is a culture there. Not willing to run. They aren’t running enough. They need to be able to run.
“If I was Kobbie’s agent or youth-team coach I would say to him, ‘when you first went into the team you ran around with a desire. You’re not doing that at the moment. Don’t fall into the trap of what they’re doing, you don’t have good examples there’.”
Meanwhile, Ten Hag slammed his players for losing control in the game and claimed they had ‘given away’ two points.
“Strong start to the game. Loads of chances then we lost in control in second part of first half. Burnley came back in the game and had some chances,” the Dutchman told Sky Sports.
“Second half was all ours and we are in a winning position and we give the game away at the end. Very frustrated, shouldn’t happen. You put yourself in difficult positions. Over many phases of the game we did very good so at the end we have to take the three points and the clean sheet. We gave it away again at the end.”
