Casemiro Responds to Carragher's Criticism: Leaving United on a High Note
Casemiro has finally answered Jamie Carragher. And he did not bother to hide how much the Sky Sports pundit’s words stung.
Speaking on the Rio Ferdinand Presents YouTube channel, the 34-year-old Manchester United midfielder opened up about one of the most bruising spells of his career and the criticism that followed, drawing a clear line between fair analysis and what he felt was outright disrespect.
“It’s disrespectful to me”
The flashpoint came after United’s 4-0 humiliation at Crystal Palace in May, a night that crystallised the team’s chaotic season and, for many, symbolised Casemiro’s apparent decline. Carragher, dissecting the performance in the studio, claimed the game had “passed him by” and urged the Brazilian to walk away from elite European football.
“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 at the time. “This has to stop because we are watching one of the greats of the modern time… The football has left him. At this top level, he needs to call it a day at this level and move.”
Casemiro has heard it all. Now he has answered.
“So… it’s your opinion. I respect your opinion,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “I don’t like it because it’s disrespectful. It’s disrespectful to me.”
The veteran, a five-time Champions League winner with Real Madrid, has never been shy of scrutiny. He has lived most of his career under the harshest lights in world football. But this, he clearly felt, went beyond the line.
Playing out of position, judged as if he wasn’t
Casemiro’s second season at Old Trafford unravelled in a swirl of injuries, tactical compromises and relentless noise. United’s defensive crisis forced him into an emergency role at centre-back for what he estimates as 12 to 15 games. He accepted it. He did the job. The judgment, he feels, ignored that context.
“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.”
He made that point more than once: the mental side, the resilience, matters more to him than any highlight reel or heat map. Yet those centre-back outings, often in a disjointed and exposed United side, shaped the public narrative just as Carragher’s most scathing critiques landed.
The timing only added fuel. Weeks after those comments, Erik ten Hag left Casemiro out of the squad entirely for the FA Cup final against Manchester City. United won without him. The omission intensified the feeling that his time at the club was coming to a close, that the pundits calling for an exit were reading the situation correctly.
Leaving on his terms
Casemiro sees it differently. He insists he is not sneaking out of the back door, but choosing his moment.
“What I won in football, but, football changes. Life changes, life changes, so look now,” he said. “It’s about this.”
He reached for a comparison that still clearly means a lot to him: his departure from Real Madrid. When he left the Santiago Bernabéu, he felt the void he created. He believes he is doing the same again.
“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 English may be fractured, but the message is clear: he wants to go while people still feel his absence, not when they are relieved to see the back of him.
Numbers, medals and a parting shot at the critics
For all the talk of decline, Casemiro still found ways to leave a mark on the pitch. He scored nine Premier League goals this season, a remarkable return for a player whose reputation was built on destruction rather than creation. He also departs with two domestic trophies in his luggage: an FA Cup and a Carabao Cup, both won in United red.
Those medals sit alongside his glittering haul from Madrid, but in his mind they carry a different weight. They were won in a team under reconstruction, in a league where his every step was dissected, at a club where one bad week can feel like a crisis and one bad month can define you.
He believes those numbers and those trophies answer some of the doubts. Not all of them. Some critics will never be convinced. That, he seems to accept.
But as he prepares for a summer exit, probably away from Europe’s top five leagues, Casemiro leaves Old Trafford convinced he has not been pushed out by the game, or by a pundit’s verdict in a studio.
He is choosing to walk away from this level on his own terms. The question now is where a player who insists “everyone misses Casemiro” decides to write the final chapter of a career that still refuses to go quietly.
