You could have been forgiven for thinking whether Manchester United’s midfielder Casemiro was suddenly colorblind as he distorted another very simple pass straight to the closest blue shirt.

Casemiro threw over the ball six times in the first twenty minutes of Saturday’s lacklustre 2-0 victory over Everton at Old Trafford. The Brazilian’s strongest quality has never been his ability to pass. Rather than being a distributor, he has always been a destroyer.

Although this was a frightening exhibition of inaccuracy even by Casemiro’s “hot potato” standards, a pass completion rate of only 75% was nothing short of appalling for a football player playing in his position against very little resistance.

Contrast it with Exequiel Palacios’s performance, which took place a little over a day later.

Palacios, who has been connected to Manchester United by BILD and is one of the many possible Casemiro replacements being evaluated, played a brilliant game as Bayer Leverkusen increased their lead over Bayern Munich at the top of the Bundesliga table to 10 points.

Palacios finished with a nearly flawless completion percentage of 96%, managing 157 touches to Casemiro’s 83 and 148 passes to Casemiro’s 70. The deep-lying midfield metronome for Leverkusen, who set up Florian Wirtz’s game-winning ball late against Wolfsburg, was a masterful clipped pass that completed a performance reminiscent of head coach Xabi Alonso’s playing career.

With a player as careless and irresponsible as Casemiro at number six, no Red Devils manager, Erik ten Hag or anyone else, will be able to assemble a team that can dominate possession and even mediocre Everton-level opposition during Ineos’ first season in charge of United.