Despite Diogo Dalot taking all the plaudits for his superb goal from outside of the penalty box in Manchester United’s 2-1 win over Sheffield United, another man deserves praise.
Sofyan Amrabat featured in his second consecutive Premier League game in the middle of the park and, after a shaky first half, looked superb.
The Moroccan midfielder joined Manchester United on deadline day and was seen as the backup for Casemiro but questions surely now need to be asked about whether the 27-year-old should be a starter in the team.
Well, after performances like that, it’s hard to make a case for Casemiro coming back into the team and his statistics from the win at Bramall Lane are certainly impressive.
Amrabat’s performances
It was certainly a sluggish start from the former FC Utrecht but he, like his other teammates, woke up in the second half and turned out to be the catalyst for the Red Devils.
The midfielder crashed a thunderous effort off the crossbar from outside of the box, which got United fans off their seats.
As well as this, the midfielder added security and the confidence on the ball that has been lacking at times from Casemiro throughout the season but Amrabat brought that in abundance.
He completed 84% of his passes and won 100% of his ground duels as well as 100% of his aerial duels according to SofaScore, he was truly colossal in the middle of the park for Erik ten Hag’s side.
Amrabat’s importance
It’s hard to emphasise how important the defensive midfield position is, especially in a Ten Hag side as we saw last season, but with Casemiro’s poor performances, the midfield weaknesses have been exposed.
In particular, the sheer amount of chances through cutbacks United were conceding with the Brazilian in the team was a concern but during the encounter at Bramall Lane, that wasn’t the case.
It’s not as simple to say that Casemiro was the problem the whole time but the difference the Moroccan brought defensively cannot go unnoticed.
Ten Hag will have a few selection headaches ahead of next weekend’s Manchester derby.
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