Manchester United's Set-Piece Dilemma After Casemiro's Departure
Casemiro has left Manchester United, and with him goes one of the most unlikely – and most devastating – set-piece weapons in the Premier League.
Harry Maguire summed it up best last season. “I thought I was good at attacking in the box until I met him,” he admitted after Casemiro’s opener in the 2-1 win over Brentford at Old Trafford. That goal was the Brazilian’s eighth header of the campaign. It was no one-off.
Casemiro finished last season with nine Premier League goals. Eight of them came with his head. For a midfielder who arrived in England with a reputation for breaking up play, not breaking defensive lines with late runs into the box, that transformation was remarkable.
Look at United’s history and the scale of the loss sharpens. Among players to score at least 10 Premier League goals for the club, only Nemanja Vidic has a higher percentage of headed strikes. By the spring of last season, Casemiro had scored more headers than any other player across Europe’s top five leagues. At 34, he was still bullying defenders from dead balls.
He did it without towering over anyone. At 6ft 1in, he was rarely the tallest player on the pitch. He didn’t need to be. His movement inside the area was razor sharp – double runs, late darts, clever starting positions. He attacked crosses as if every one was his to win, and for a long spell at United, many of them were.
That is the hole United now have to plug.
Set-pieces have become a battleground in the modern Premier League. Margins are thin, games are tight, and dead balls decide points. United leaned heavily on Casemiro’s aerial menace. Strip that away and they must find goals from somewhere else or accept a drop-off in one of the few reliable attacking patterns they had.
The problem? The numbers from last season do not offer much comfort.
No player in the current squad scored more than one headed goal in the league. Not one.
Amad, Bryan Mbeumo, Benjamin Sesko, Harry Maguire, Matthijs de Ligt and Patrick Dorgu all finished with a single headed strike to their name. That is the entire list.
For a dressing room that includes some imposing frames, that return is underwhelming. Sesko, Maguire and De Ligt, in particular, should be far more dangerous in the air. Yet only one of that trio is expected to be a regular starter in the opening weeks of the season.
Sesko’s situation is complicated. Inside the club, the message is clear: they expect him to be fit enough to make the squad for the opening game of the campaign against Hull. But he has missed every pre-season fixture. No minutes, no rhythm, no sharpness. Match fitness cannot be faked, and that reality will shape Michael Carrick’s early line-ups.
Carrick has already been forced to adjust. During pre-season he has used Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha through the middle, a clear nod to Sesko’s absence and lack of preparation. If that pattern continues, Sesko may find himself eased in rather than thrown straight into the starting XI. A realistic timeline for him to start regularly points towards something like September.
De Ligt, meanwhile, is on a different recovery track. He is said to be progressing well after back surgery, but United will not gamble with him. Back issues demand patience. That means his aerial presence from corners and free-kicks will be missing for a while yet, piling even more responsibility onto Maguire.
Maguire, at least, has offered a timely reminder of what he can bring. His headed goal against AC Milan on Saturday was a familiar sight: dominant leap, clean contact, the ball buried. It hinted at a centre-back ready to reclaim his status as a major threat in the opposition box next season.
He will not be able to do it alone.
Others will have to join him in carrying the load from set-plays. Leny Yoro is one obvious candidate. He has already shown he can be a problem in the box. He was denied a headed goal against Fulham last season only because it was officially recorded as an own goal, but the movement and aggression were his. Given how many games he is likely to play, his potential contribution cannot be ignored.
Still, the broader picture is unavoidable. United have lost a player who turned corners and free-kicks into a genuine fear factor, and the rest of the squad has not yet proved it can compensate. Casemiro became a secret weapon in Manchester. Now that weapon is gone.
The question is simple: who steps up, and how quickly, before those lost set-piece goals start to show on the league table?
