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News
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Man Utd’s challenge of replacing Casemiro laid bare
Robin Bairner
- 4 Apr 2026 13:03 BST
- 3 min read
Analysis
Manchester United’s top priority in the summer transfer window will be finding a replacement for Casemiro.
The Brazil international has already announced that he will leave the club, and while a resurgence in his form sparked hopes that he might sign a new deal, the former Real Madrid star’s decision appears final.
A surge of players have been linked with replacing him, from last summer’s €100 million target Carlos Baleba to Adam Wharton, Elliot Anderson, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimaraes.
Current ETV
Casemiro
DM, M (C)
Man Utd
Casemiro
DM, M (C)
Man Utd
ETV Range
€5.6M - €7.6M
Any midfielder of any pedigree outside a top-six side in the Premier League has been touted as a candidate, yet whoever is ultimately handed the role will be faced with an extremely daunting task.
Here’s just how difficult it will be…
Casemiro is a top-three Premier League midfielder
Although Casemiro is deep into the veteran stages of his career, the Brazilian has been playing at an elite level. How good? Almost as well as any other central midfielder in the Premier League, according to data analytics firm SciSports.
Its data shows that only Liverpool’s Dominik Szoboszlai and Arsenal’s Eberechi Eze are performing better than him based on hundreds of in-game data points.
Casemiro even narrowly outperforms Man Utd clubmate Bruno Fernandes, whose own future at United is under some question amid rumours linking him with a move to Saudi Arabia.
The 34-year-old performs solidly across the board, but his open-play disruption remains at a particularly impressively level along with his defensive positioning and passing. These latter two qualities, at least, should not diminish significantly with age.
Physically, too, Casemiro is performing to a solid level. His speed is average for a Premier League midfielder over the course of the last three years, SciSports reports, but his stamina is ‘relatively high’ even this deep into his career.
Remarkably, he has seen his SciSkill, which is a measure of quality based from the aforementioned data, has risen 13.2 to 103.3 over the course of the last six months, indicating a period of rapid development. This is well short of his career best of around 124, but is nonetheless impressive.
Casemiro, in short, has been a freak of nature this season.
Who is best placed to replace him?
In the hunt for a like-for-like Casemiro replacement, United would be best advised to go all-in for Newcastle’s Sandro Tonali.
SciSports indicates that the Italy international star has the most similar profile to the Brazilian in terms of his playing style.
Tonali, though, is a younger version. He’s also extremely quick and has similar stamina, while his SciSkill of 107.9 suggests that he will be an upgrade on Casemiro.
FootballTransfers has reported that Newcastle are bracing themselves for two or three sales this summer, so it’s up to Man Utd to ensure they get the pick of the crop in the form of the 25-year-old.
