FOOTBALL: Manchester United manager Erik Ten Hag has revealed why Casemiro has never started a Premier League game since his €80million deal

Erik Ten Hag has opt­ed out of Man­ches­ter Unit­ed’s €80million ris­ing star Casemiro because he did­n’t want to change the win­ning formula.

The Brazil­ian star has yet to make his first Pre­mier League start, hav­ing arrived at Old Traf­ford two months ago.

The 30-year-old mid­field­er was off the bench for half an hour on Sun­day but was unable to pre­vent Man­ches­ter City from win­ning 6–3.

Casemiro is push­ing for a mid­field sub­sti­tute for Scot­tish star Scott McTom­i­nay against Ever­ton on Sunday.

The Brazil­ian start­ed in last mon­th’s Europa League match against Real Sociedad and could be in action for Thurs­day’s Group E game at Omo­nia Nicosia.

How­ev­er, Unit­ed’s mid­field fell short at the Eti­had after fail­ing to inte­grate into the Pre­mier League’s ear­ly vic­to­ries over Southamp­ton, Leices­ter and Arsenal.

Casemiro was intro­duced to the Old Traf­ford fans dur­ing the 2–1 win over Liv­er­pool on 22 August.

And Ten Hag says a four-game win­ning streak that start­ed that night has kept a glob­al star on the bench ever since.

The for­mer Ajax coach said: “From the day we signed him, we start­ed win­ning and it’s for the team.

“It’s not because of Casemiro that the team is doing well, it’s because of Scott McTominay.

“But I’m sure he will be impor­tant to us both in the long term and the short term. He will find him­self in the team, but it has to come naturally.”

Casemiro start­ed for Brazil in a friend­ly against Ghana on 23 Sep­tem­ber and four days lat­er against Tunisia (5–1).