Scott McTominay: Misprofiled, Misunderstood, Magical | OneFootball

There was a clip going around during Scott McTominay’s last season at Manchester United in a game against Luton Town that had fans accusing him of refusing to run back. It was one of the first signs of the fan base again beginning to go down that familiar road of turning on their own. One that has become increasingly prevalent over the last few seasons, particularly among academy talents.

One thing about McTominay is that, for certain sections of the fanbase, he has been perennially misunderstood, and this is likely because he was misprofiled during his time at Manchester United, except for his final season.

NAPLES, ITALY – MAY 23: Scott McTominay and Billy Gilmour of Napoli celebrate following the victory in the Serie A match between Napoli and Cagliari at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona on May 23, 2025 in Naples, Italy. (Photo by Francesco Pecoraro/Getty Images)

McTominay, misprofiled

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer recently highlighted that McTominay rarely played in his preferred position at the club due to the profile of players in his midfield selection. The manager had to choose between an ageing Nemanja Matic, Paul Pogba, or the energetic McTominay and Fred, and almost always decided that the latter were the better choices. This was particularly evident in big games.

Fast forward 3 years, and McTominay is one of the most effective goal poachers from midfield on the entire globe, and is slowly becoming a British legend on the beautiful shores of Italy, with a Scudetto medal already hung up lavishly inside his home in Naples.

McTominay had never been a true number six, dating back to his academy days. For a time, the Scottish midfielder played as a striker, but he was almost always a box-to-box midfielder, with one of his specialities being his ability to crash into the box and score a goal. The former United star has a lot of traits similar to players like Frank Lampard and Jude Bellingham. These players know when to arrive in the box and how to make it count when they do.

Playing in that role at United, where he was effectively playing with a hand tied behind his back due to the limitations put on his ability, certainly was not easy. There were glimpses in games of the true ability of McTominay, with the Leeds games in particular referenced by Solskjaer, but it was not until Erik ten Hag’s final season at the club that we got to see the true McTominay rock onto the scene and stamp his imprint on the team in a prolific manner.

Ten Hag gets a lot of abuse, but his utilisation of McTominay is not one of them. It could be fair to say Antonio Conte and Napoli may not have turned their heads towards the midfielder but for that final season at Old Trafford, and his famous Scudetto season in Naples, may never have happened.

The Dutch coach utilised McTominay as a late-arriving midfielder, usually pushing into the spaces opened up by Rasmus Hojlund in the box to nick a goal. It led to the 27-year-old scoring three match-winning goals from midfield in the season, with seven goals in total coming in the Premier League. A magic return for a player who just a season or so earlier would have been solely looked at as a defensive midfielder who wasn’t capable of reaching the highest heights in that position.

mctominay, misunderstood

McTominay became the first player to score twice within the first three minutes of a game against Leeds United under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer back in 2021. Again, the game the Norwegian cited as one he gave the United academy graduate the license to roam forward to try and nick a goal. Scotland had been using McTominay in a similar vein to Erik ten Hag back in 2023 before this current run of form, too, seeing him involved in more goals than any other player during the qualifying stage of Euro 2024, according to an OPTA stat from September 2023. McTominay ended the campaign as the highest goal-scoring midfielder in qualifying, with seven goals in seven games. World-class levels of performance.

The argument some people try to peddle is that while McTominay is performing better, he is playing in a much simpler and easier league than the English one. But then, how can one explain his international renaissance? Players often do not perform well when asked to play in roles that don’t maximise their potential. How can anyone argue that was not what happened with McTominay at United? Particularly when the manager who played him in these roles literally admitted this was the case? As soon as he was profiled correctly at the club, we saw the best of the midfielder, and he has gone from strength to strength ever since.

It’s all well and good suggesting the only reason McTominay is thriving in Naples is because he’s in a weaker league, but to thrive in the manner that he is, and deliver on the stages that he’s delivered on, is hardly an easy achievement. Italy is a tough league to play in. It’s tactical. It’s a league where players can get suffocated, just like the Premier League. If you don’t adapt properly, you sit on the bench, and McTominay has adapted better than 90% of players that come into the league. That’s a testament to raw and pure ability. Not the quality of a league. A league, by the way, that had the team that finished below McTominay’s side last season in the final of arguably the greatest club competition on the entire planet.

The departures of players like McTominay at United and Elliot Anderson at Newcastle United are harsh reminders of the unfortunate direction in which modern football has pivoted. United sold McTominay to appease the ridiculous PSR rules, which would enable them to sign Manuel Ugarte, but in doing so, decreased the quality in their midfield and removed a huge chunk of goals from the starting eleven at the same time. Erik ten Hag never wanted to lose McTominay, but had to abide by the PSR situation the club was desperate to abide by, and thus lost one of his most potent weapons.

mctominay, magical

It should be pride that bristles through the hearts of Reds across the world watching an academy boy shine on the biggest of stages. A Balon’Dor top 20 nomination for a player who never gave less than 110% for a club he never truly wanted to leave. A player who was compared to Declan Rice, which, in hindsight, is a ridiculous comparison in itself. Both are good at different things, so asking one to do the other’s job is counterproductive. Could Declan Rice do what McTominay is doing in front of the goal at the moment? It’s not impossible to say he could, but considering he’s a completely different footballer, it feels unlikely he could truly replicate it. Likewise, McTominay is unlikely to be capable of replicating the job Rice does for Arsenal. We’ve seen he can’t do that at United, but he shouldn’t have had to, and he doesn’t have to anymore.

Furthermore, on the topic of people not being able to replicate what Scott McTominay can do, his overhead against Denmark this week is one of the highest recorded overhead kicks ever recorded in football. To smash the ball past Kasper Schmichel in the Danish net, McTominay had to climb a whopping 2.53m in the air, and had a hang time of 1.7s. This is higher than Cristiano Ronaldo leapt for his infamous overhead against Juventus in the Champions League. To put that into context, as pointed out by TNT Sports, Joachim Andersen is 6”3, and in the air while the overhead is happening, and he was still nowhere near the height the midfielder reached at the point of contact for the goal.

To leave United, win player of the year in Italy, while winning a Scudetto, and then finish as your country’s top goal scorer as they qualify for the World Cup for the first time since 1998, well, that is well and truly the stuff dreams are made of, and seeing McTominay ask for his mother after scoring such a beautiful goal as he peered longingly into the racous Scottish crowd in front of him, you could truly see it couldn’t have happened to a better human being.

A national hero

McTominay was a hero in the hearts of the Scotland fans long before he pierced Danish hearts with his overhead kick last week, but he’s veering into icon territory in the country since he signed for Napoli.

To gain a better perspective on how the public in Scotland views the Carrington academy graduate, I spoke to the Tartan Scarf on Twitter, who is very well renowned for his coverage of the Scottish National Team.

Speaking on the role of McTominay evolving into what he is today since he joined the national team in 2018, Scarf had the following to say,

It’s interesting to see exactly when Scotland decided to pivot their profiling of McTominay, with Scarf referencing 2023, exactly when Ten Hag started to deploy him in that role for United, which ultimately began to reap major rewards on the pitch at Old Trafford. Again, the mention of box-crashing is a true credit to the art McTominay has mastered over the last few seasons.

Furthermore, on the topic, Scarf details that despite the public conversations during his time as a defensive midfielder at United, the fans in Scotland always saw the potential McTominay had, and now describes him as the COMPLETE Scotland midfielder. A hell of a compliment, for a hell of a player.

To finish, Scott McTominay is a sign for players worldwide that you can go to another club in a different country and rediscover your form. You can have the career you always dreamed of having, even if the odds are stacked against you at this current moment in time. He’s a player Manchester United would love to have, but also a player Napoli could not fathom losing. He has proven he can hang with the best on the world stage, and all eyes will be fixed on the Scottish Gladiator when Scotland enters the arena for their first World Cup in 28 years this summer.