Scott McTominay was one of the very few non David de Gea highlights for Manchester United today in their goalless draw at Sevilla. Overall, United’s first outing in the knockout round of this season’s UEFA Champions League was hugely disappointing, but the 21-year-old midfielder’s performance was certainly superlative, and his showing was hailed as “fantastic” and “brilliant” by manager Jose Mourinho.
Paul Pogba recovered from an illness that kept him out of the FA Cup fifth round win at Huddersfield Town this past Saturday, but still found himself on the bench to start this one.
That development got all the headlines initially, but Pogba came on in the 17′ when Ander Herrera suffered an injury, and the Frenchman saw himself paired with “young Scott” who earned a starting XI position tonight.
“In the press conference, the questions were about Paul [Pogba] but the question should be about the kid. He was fantastic,” Mourinho told the BBC.”
“He did everything well. He put pressure on Ever Banega and stopped him playing, he’s their playmaker. I think Scott was brilliant. I think Paul made a big effort to try to give the team what I asked of him. Paul replaced Ander, he tried to bring to the game the same kind of qualities. He lost a couple of possessions but he also gave us stability because we had a good percentage of possession for the way we played.”
In mid-December, Mourinho hailed McTominay as no longer being “young Scott” anymore after a 1-0 win over Bournemouth.
“For me he is not young Scott anymore – he is just Scott, a player from the first team squad,” Mourinho said earlier this campaign.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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