After enjoying his first-team breakthrough under Jose Mourinho, Manchester United academy product Scott McTominay has blossomed into one of the Red Devils’ most prominent performers.
The Scotland international played 31 times under Mourinho, and his displays drew notable praise from the Portuguese man. Speaking after his performance in a 2-1 victory over Liverpool back in March 2018, the former United boss said: “McTominay played with such class and maturity. He really impressed me because the crowd can push with their hearts and even when they were pushing him to do the wrong thing, he did the right thing.”
Mourinho was also unequivocal in his praise of McTominay’s humility and described him as someone who is “intelligent”. Quite the big praise indeed.
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And whilst the midfielder certainly developed into a player who could feature for the first-team at United, it has been under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer where he has come on leaps and bounds.
Under Mourinho, he never scored or provided a single assist, but in the 43 times he has played during Solskjaer’s time in charge, he has found the back of the net seven times, and delivered one assist too. And this season alone has seen him arguably develop into the club’s biggest unsung hero.
Before suffering a knee injury, McTominay started in the Premier League for the first 12 games of the season, before eventually capping his comeback with a strike in the 2-0 win over bitter rivals Manchester City earlier this month. When you look at his stats from this season, it’s quite clear to see why he has become such a permanent fixture in the United line-up.
His two tackles and 1.3 interceptions per game in the top-flight puts him in fifth amongst all Red Devils players for both categories. But he simply hasn’t been just a midfield destroyer. His tally of four Premier League goals puts him fourth in the rankings, whilst his 1.5 dribbles per game puts him fifth. All in all, his average match rating of 7.10 as per Whoscored this season, is good enough to put him sixth.
Because he isn’t a forward like Anthony Martial or Marcus Rashford, or a big-money signing like Harry Maguire, McTominay can go slightly under the radar for his performances. But there can be no question that Solskjaer’s touch of magic in transforming him into a key cog in this United machine, has made him into one of the club’s biggest unsung heroes.
Meanwhile, Man Utd can’t afford to see this man join Man City instead.