"Best player on the pitch", "He's back" - Fans hail Manchester United veteran for his 'massive' performance in 1-0 Fulham win

Manchester United avoided the banana skin by starting their Premier League 2024-25 campaign on a winning note. The Red Devils beat Fulham 1-0 at Old Trafford on Friday (August 16). Fans were mighty impressed with Casemiro's work in the midfield and shared their reactions on social media.

Debutant Joshua Zirkzee gave the Red Devils the lead in the 87th minute. However, fans have also lauded Casemiro, who put up a show on Friday. In the 90 minutes that the Brazilian played, he registered a passing accuracy of 84% (43/51) and created three chances. Additionally, he won two out of four tackles and seven out of 14 duels.

Here's how fans reacted on X (formerly Twitter).

"Best player on the pitch. Fair play, Casemiro," a fan commented on X.

"Casemiro remontada. He’s back boys," wrote another.

"I hear that. But let’s talk about my boy casemiro. He was Cooking today," commented another fan on X.

Some of the other comments on X were as follows:

"That casemiro performance, I’m on my feet," someone wrote about the midfielder.

"Casemiro was massive," declared another.

"Casemiro was insane this game btw. Man was locked in!" inferred someone else on X.

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Manchester United finished last season's Premier League at the lowest position in their history

Erik Ten Hag and Manchester United finished their English Premier League 2023-24 in the eighth position, their lowest league finish in history. Despite a 2-0 win over Brighton in their last match, the Red Devils ended the season with 60 points, 31 points behind city rivals and champions Manchester City.

They also recorded 14 league defeats in the season, their highest since the 1989-90 campaign where they were bested 16 times under Sir Alex Ferguson.

Furthermore, they broke the record of ending the season with a negative goal difference for the first time in 34 years. Despite goals by Diogo Dalot and Rasmus Hojlund in their final game against Brighton, Manchester United were at a -1 goal difference by the end of the season (scored 57 and conceded 58).

"It is not good enough by far. Eighth is the worst performance. It is the truth, but we should have done better. Hopefully we will have a good week and everyone is on board. We will put a competitive team out and we will fight for the [FA] Cup," Erik Ten Hag said after the Brighton game. [via ESPN].

On a brighter note, his team ended the season on a high when they defeated Pep Guardiola's Manchester City 2-1 at the Wembley Stadium to win the FA Cup on May 25. This feat also made them qualify for the UEFA Europa League next season despite finishing low on the EPL table.

Manchester United's previous lowest finish was under the management of David Moyes in the 2013-2014 season when they finished seventh.