One month later, Welbeck isn't walking into his own team due to an ankle injury.
Scott McTominay | Napoli
- Thread starter top1whoisman
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) are here to discuss Amad saving our blushes in a win against Southampton as well as our now annual loss at home to Brighton. They discuss Amorim's post-match comments, revisit how mid-table we may or may not be, and discuss some transfer news.
Criticise him for whatever i.t.o. ability but he's got a fantastic mindset/mentality. Very happy he's doing well.
"can't stop scoring"
Has 3 goals this season in the league.
Has 3 goals this season in the league.
I’m too depressed to check. But it would make him probably our joint top scorer this season
4 now to be accurate.
Our two top scorers in the league are Bruno and Rashford with 4 each
Mctominay leaves = we stop scoring goals.
You're correct. Still funny how "he can't stop scoring". Still would be our joint top scorer though
You're correct. Still funny how "he can't stop scoring". Still would be our joint top scorer though
Looking on Whoscored, looks as is he has 5 goals and 2 assists in 15 starts for Napoli this season. Not prolific but a pretty decent total.
As a member of the diehard McTominator fan club who is still pissed we let him go Ive actively avoided this thread. But in glad he s doing well and I hope he wins the ballon d'or at Napoli.
Happy for him. Was weird letting him go.
I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until he wins the ballon d’or
He’s a good player and doing well in Italy, but it was still the right decision to sell him.
It’s weird seeing the revisionism on here at the minute because he used to get absolutely slaughtered after every single match.
It’s weird seeing the revisionism on here at the minute because he used to get absolutely slaughtered after every single match.
he was just our new fellaini to be fair. A way around actually playing proper football. Horrible midfielder but a decent attacking option and a good lad by all accounts. We got good money for him and he’s doing well. Hopefully we sell more players that aren’t total dross so we can demand bigger and bigger fees.
Ya of course it was , but unfortunately a thread gets bumped for a former player if he passes it forward these days.
Happy for him but he wouldn’t be a Amorim type player anyways.
Imagine McT in the Amorim system, it'd be a disaster.
The stick he got was vastly excessive, especially given he was pretty much the lowest paid member of the senior squad.
He was a proper marmite player, but if you loved him you loved him.
People like me loved the likes of McTominay, Ander Herrera and Brandon Williams because it was clear how much they loved the club, and how much better they were than the average premier league footballer. They were probably right that we couldn't have won titles with them starting for us, but I maintain (and similarly with Rashford) that if you don't replace those guys with -better- players, there's a lot more room on the "worse footballers" list than the "better footballers" at our club, so it was obvious what would happen: we would slip and become even more shit.
It's the same thing with Bruno Fernandes. People are adamant they want him gone, but there's a lot worse players out there than him, and we will be worse without him if we don't -find- better players.
Have we really improved on McTominay since he left? With Zirkzee?
Will we really improve on Rashford when he goes?
Did we improve on Herrera when he went on a free?
The recruitment at our club has been atrocious. If we keep replacing good/average players with bad/worse ones, we will end up in the championship before long
It's Scott McTominay. Not Zinedine Zidane
Would be brilliant to see him win the Serie A at the first attempt.
I think poor recruitment is a separate issue to moving on players who aren’t good enough. If we let players go and replace them with worse players it makes us worse. That’s stating the bleeding obvious and has been happening for years. But taking your logic to the extreme we just never sell anyone. Keep lining with this same bunch of shitty players until they die from old age. Players like McTominay and Martial had such obvious limitations selling them whenever we received a decent offer was a no brainer. And that remains the right decision no matter how much they’re enjoying life in a weaker league, or how badly the funds raised by their sale were spent.
He deserves this , Naples is a wonderful city ( not without it's share of problems obviously ) and I'm sure the fans there are loving him.
He served the club well to the extent of his capabilities.
He served the club well to the extent of his capabilities.
He's obviously doing fine out there. But just for the record he averages 31.1 passes this season when playing DM/CM roles. He averaged 30.6 here last season
Lobotka 60.7, Gilmour 58.2, Anguissa 49.7...
Ugarte averages 42.1, Mainoo 47, Eriksen 51.7, Bruno 55 and Casemiro 56.1 in CM and DM positions so far this season
He's scoring less and coming off the bench to score less often in Napoli than he was at United and he's still mostly the same player in general play who despite being picked in midfield, touches the ball and plays less passes by a fair margin than everyone around him. With 1.4 tackles and 0.9 interceptions per 90 mins he's light on defensive work too. He does average 1.2 successful dribbles per game which is up from at United, but its still 2.2 unsuccessful dribbles so he takes several attempts to get there.
One of the reasons that McTominay might not be coming off the bench to score as often is... He's starting the games he plays. He has 1 sub appearance off the bench. Maybe he'll go back to being a good goalscorer and especially off the bench when Napoli arent starting him. But usually he just doesnt appear when Lobotka or Gilmour play instead and he gets a rest.
Lobotka 60.7, Gilmour 58.2, Anguissa 49.7...
Ugarte averages 42.1, Mainoo 47, Eriksen 51.7, Bruno 55 and Casemiro 56.1 in CM and DM positions so far this season
He's scoring less and coming off the bench to score less often in Napoli than he was at United and he's still mostly the same player in general play who despite being picked in midfield, touches the ball and plays less passes by a fair margin than everyone around him. With 1.4 tackles and 0.9 interceptions per 90 mins he's light on defensive work too. He does average 1.2 successful dribbles per game which is up from at United, but its still 2.2 unsuccessful dribbles so he takes several attempts to get there.
One of the reasons that McTominay might not be coming off the bench to score as often is... He's starting the games he plays. He has 1 sub appearance off the bench. Maybe he'll go back to being a good goalscorer and especially off the bench when Napoli arent starting him. But usually he just doesnt appear when Lobotka or Gilmour play instead and he gets a rest.
Because we are not lacking height, athleticism and goals...
Bolded part is the most obvious and general thing to say about recruitment. The same can be said about ManCity and Real Madrid. The issue with football is, that you have to take risks. If you have tools that don't work the way they should or if it is obvious, that the tools your competitors have are way better in their functionality, then there is no point, sticking to faulty tools to prevent ending up with even worse tools. It is obvious, that we have to do our best, do risk assessment and our homework to prevent desaster as effectively as possible but this way of thinking has no real point. You look back, with the benefit of hindsight on your side to questions decisions made in the past. There is no chance in the world, that we would be even a little better off now as a football team had we still McTominay or Brandon Williams available. Thats where we have to go and as soon as the success and the excitement comes back, you'll suddenly find love for players you havent expected earlier.
Yeah, you beat me to it.
But not at the price of general footballing ability. And McTominays athleticism is more than overstated. I am sure, he looks great when topless but he has been manhandled by fecking Bernada Silva. We aren't talking about a Fellaini like Warrior here but a flattrack bully in terms of physicality.
Yep. He’s the exact same player every single time this thread gets bumped. A central midfielder who can’t and doesn’t want to take ownership of the football, but has a good knack for getting into good spots in the final third for a goal every 1 in 4 matches or so.
He'd be one of the number 10's surely?
Maybe? Although his inability to find space to receive passes in the centre of midfield would be an even bigger problem in the congested areas around the opposition box. Is that how Conte is using him? I suspect his touches/game is lower than ever. Still handy as someone to crash the box and score a goal every now and then (great option off the bench) but that’s about it.
Nothing to discuss really. We see how much we miss him. His goals. His passion. His presence. Lot of McTominay-out supporters know we were wrong not keeping him.
Conte moved away from his precious back 3 for him - though i suspect Lukaku being old and unreliable has a lot to do with that too
Basically he plays one of the 2 CM roles in defence(flat 442) and then as a second/shadow striker in attack(424). He doesn't touch the ball like a midfielder because he's not one when they have possession
Conte actually isn't stupid and tends to ask players to do the things they're good at...
Basically he plays one of the 2 CM roles in defence(flat 442) and then as a second/shadow striker in attack(424). He doesn't touch the ball like a midfielder because he's not one when they have possession
Conte actually isn't stupid and tends to ask players to do the things they're good at...
If he was the answer to "lacking athleticism" why were we bad last season?
We have players who can jog and run around without the ball. Mount, Ugarte, etc
We've been conceding from set pieces forever so he didnt fix that, even if I'm sure he would help.
Goals is the one thing he would have fixed to some extent. He did last season and specifically in the league, because in other competitions we have players scoring goals like Eriksen and Hojlund in the Europa league but they cant do it in the league.
Is that per 90 mins? I'm assuming so given the Eriksen figure, and McTom having played largely full games this season.
I dont miss him. We miss quality players but i dont think McT is a Manchester United quality midfielder.
Agreed. Average player. Glad he's gone.
I believe he won Napoli player of the month....I guess those 30 touches on average per game were decent touches then....
He is dominating out there at times, has really stepped his game up.
A massive loss to United, he would be perfect in this current set up of Amorims, but we needed the money so I guess it was the right thing to do at the time.
He is dominating out there at times, has really stepped his game up.
A massive loss to United, he would be perfect in this current set up of Amorims, but we needed the money so I guess it was the right thing to do at the time.
100%. If there is one thing we are not missing it's McTominay hiding in midfield and letting everyone glide past him.
Yes
Passes. He has more than 30 touches
The main thing is he has one of their highest shots per 90 mins. 2nd most from the players who have played at least 1k mins (a bunch of players who come off the bench have more). Kvaratskhelia averages 3.8 per 90 mins, then McTom with 2.1 per 90. Lukaku is slightly behind with 2.
He can have some good efforts on goal and look like scoring and it might be enough to call it a good game on top of the small amount of things he also does. And sometimes he scores.
I think he would be in our best starting 11 today.