McTominay interview

Cheers OP, I care more about the football than the boots, so the interesting bits are...

1. Emphasis on playing smart when on and off the ball.

2. Importance of having good social circle.

3. Giving back to family.

4. Focus on football, not the money aspect, as a young player.

5. Mentally strong facing opinions and criticisms, don't let it affect you too much negatively.

6. Profession in football is not easy at all, it's hard. Need to always do the right thing and stay hungry on and off pitch.

7. When he was in the U-18s, people write you off quickly. He was massively written off and heavily criticized. Sounds like he's supposedly have no future here, or so that were the claims.

8. New contract is not the final coffin. You still need to work hard and improve, else you will be replaced.

9. "A contract means nothing until your 30 years old and you have ten trophies. That’s the goal and ambition."
I just realize he wasn't in the squad in 16/17, no wonder he has zero trophies.

10. "it’s tough to see other people winning - it hurts. It’s not as easy as batting an eye lid as if a tournament or cup didn’t happen - I’m a winner so for me, it’s about asking “why have I not won a trophy yet, why has my team not got a trophy yet?”. I’m sure it’s coming very soon. I’m very very positive about that. It has to be the mindset - there’s no acceptance of anything less than trophies when you’re a Manchester United player."

I really like McTominay as a character: his interview after the Spurs debacle was very insightful into his mentality.

He is abit like Gary Neville: not blessed with natural world class talent, but has made up for that through sheer hard work and adoption of a strict and very professional Sports lifestyle.

very few midfielders are bossing it in their early 20s. A useful guide is to remember we signed Keane aged 22 and Carrick even older, and they both joined much better squads and under tutelage of Sir Alex Ferguson. If we use that as a guide, then Scotty has been doing really well and is rightly a very valuable member of our squad.

I think he will be a top draw player by the time is is around 26/27 and be a mainstay of our first XI.

yet another great example of the clubs youth system.

It’s amazing how far he has come since Mourinho gave him his first few games. He has improved every year consistently, and I have a feeling his peak may, yet surprise us.

He takes his chances quite well around the box - not just from the Leeds game. I hope Ole and his staff encourage him to make more runs forward, as it could be quite a useful source of goals.

I noticed that fans and media ignore his progress. He started as a pure destroyer under Mourinho and was limited in other aspects at the time. But he is gradually but steadily improving.

1. Passing. Much better this season.
2. Dribbling. I am impressed with his ability to carry a ball.
3. Off the ball movement.
4. Shooting.
5. Technique.

If he continues improving at this rate, we will have a hell of a player in the next season. His ceiling is much higher than Fred's, though Fred is much better than McT right now.

What impresses me is his ball retention, quite often he is being pressed quite hard and a few feints and a dribble he gets out of trouble where it would be easy to lose the ball.

Still not convinced he's first choice CM material. He is physically dominant but doesn't really excel at anything else in particular and is a really poor passer. On the other hand, he has a strong mindset and disrupts opponents especially in big games.

Scott McObviously

Web of Bissaka said:

Cheers OP, I care more about the football than the boots, so the interesting bits are...

1. Emphasis on playing smart when on and off the ball.

2. Importance of having good social circle.

3. Giving back to family.

4. Focus on football, not the money aspect, as a young player.

5. Mentally strong facing opinions and criticisms, don't let it affect you too much negatively.

6. Profession in football is not easy at all, it's hard. Need to always do the right thing and stay hungry on and off pitch.

7. When he was in the U-18s, people write you off quickly. He was massively written off and heavily criticized. Sounds like he's supposedly have no future here, or so that were the claims.

8. New contract is not the final coffin. You still need to work hard and improve, else you will be replaced.

9. "A contract means nothing until your 30 years old and you have ten trophies. That’s the goal and ambition."
I just realize he wasn't in the squad in 16/17, no wonder he has zero trophies.

10. "it’s tough to see other people winning - it hurts. It’s not as easy as batting an eye lid as if a tournament or cup didn’t happen - I’m a winner so for me, it’s about asking “why have I not won a trophy yet, why has my team not got a trophy yet?”. I’m sure it’s coming very soon. I’m very very positive about that. It has to be the mindset - there’s no acceptance of anything less than trophies when you’re a Manchester United player."

Click to expand...

I fecking love 9 and 10.

Tallis said:

It’s amazing how far he has come since Mourinho gave him his first few games. He has improved every year consistently, and I have a feeling his peak may, yet surprise us.

He takes his chances quite well around the box - not just from the Leeds game. I hope Ole and his staff encourage him to make more runs forward, as it could be quite a useful source of goals.

Click to expand...

He's totally a Mourinho type player. Mou loves these driving, strong midfielders. Look how much faith he places in Sissoko and Ndombele

Berbasbullet said:

What impresses me is his ball retention, quite often he is being pressed quite hard and a few feints and a dribble he gets out of trouble where it would be easy to lose the ball.

Click to expand...

Yeah in stark contrast to Pogba a lot of the time. Fred is good at keeping possession that way as well, but is more likely to pass it away like Bruno can.

Great interview - I couldn’t get over how intense he was during the post match interview vs Leeds.

fecking love the lad.

Great interview, cheers for posting @Seanus. Comes across as a top lad Scott with a great attitude, brilliant to see.

It’s fair to say he’s not blessed with world class talent but he’s so hard working and ambitious he will end up better than 7/10 players just from working and improving, staying dedicated.

I like that he’s got a serious mindset and not interested in messing about and being famous, just wants to win. He will be a good part of our winning mentality for the future.

I think his ability is underated. He's strong on the ball and quite skillful. He gives away the ball a lot less than Fred or Pogba...you can argue it's because he's less likely to try a risky pass, but both of those like to give away the ball even when playing it sideways or backwards, and McTominay is actually pretty good at picking out a forward pass when it's there to be played. He just isn't so good at seeing the not so obvious ones in the way Fernandes or at times Pogba can.

I think he's good enough to be a really important player though. He has a great engine, great attitude, very good game intelliegence, very reliable on the ball, not afraid to get stuck in or try to find a forward ball instead of passing the buck. He's improved massively in a relatively short space of time. Importantly he also has composure. He isn't rattled when teams press him and if he gets a sight at goal he'll find the bottom corner. If you can be an all round good midfield player but also add 5-10 goals a year to the team that gives you an edge over a lot of players.

I mean Fred has things about his game that are better than McTominay, but I'd take McTominay over him if I had to choose one just because I know McTominay won't pass the ball to the opposition striker twice a game, and will get a goal every so often that will make up for the odd thing Fred does that he can't. That's not a criticism of Fred either, just a comparison. At the moment I think they're our best two midfielders, although we need all four due to the congestion of the fixtures, and due to the biggest issue we have with McTominay which is that he seems to get injured a lot.

You can see the bit of Keane in him, definitely takes no shit. If he keeps going the way he’s going we’ll have a hell of a player in a few years.